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Book- . •S s' fe . 
Copyright N?__ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 


y 















Fourth Church Pulpit: First Series 

PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 


JOHN TIMOTHY STONE.. 








PLACES OF 
QUIET STRENGTH 

and Other Sermons 


JOHN TIMOTHY STONE 

D.D., LL.D. \\ 


Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago 


NEW 


YORK 


GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 




COPYRIGHT, 1923, 

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


• < 
«*» 


PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH. I 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

JUN 28 1923 ©C1A7H047 




To 

CHARLES WOOD 

Whose Life and Sermons when I was of 
High School Age gave me Renewed Pur¬ 
pose and Zeal to become a Minister; and 
Whose Spirit, Standard and Friendship have 
been an Ideal and Joy to me ever since. 




FOREWORD 


For many years it was my custom to read a sermon 
a day by some one of the great preachers of the 
Scotch, English or American pulpit. The sermons of 
Chalmers, Newman, Beecher, Maclaren, Flavel, Lid- 
don, Bushnell, William M. Taylor, Roswell D. Hitch¬ 
cock, Frederick W. Robertson, Moody, Spurgeon, Sel- 
bie, Watkinson and others have been through the years 
a constant source of inspiration and personal help. 

There is a question, however, whether the reading of 
individual sermons ever helps one directly in sermon 
preparation, but their indirect influence as to style, 
clarity, imagination and inspiration undoubtedly have 
far-reaching effect. If themes do not suggest them¬ 
selves individually, and come fresh and clear to the 
mind, they seldom leave a marked impression upon a 
congregation. 

Much of the work of preparation for my own pulpit 
has been fragmentary and irregular; not that it has 
been neglected, nor minimized, but the constant de¬ 
mands and interruptions of a large parish, together 
with repeated responsibilities from the Church and 
agencies at large have forced me to do my work at 
all times, frequently with limited time and amid divert¬ 
ing surroundings. Some of these sermons are the 
result of more study and thought than others; some 
merely the stenographic report, revised. 

vii 


viii FOREWORD 

In reading over the proof my experience no doubt 
has been that of others, and is one of sincere regret 
that the attempt has been made to publish. Realizing 
as one must the loss which comes to all public utterance 
when separated from the personality of expression, the 
only possible reason for publishing can be that some 
may gain through these pages the inspiration which 
others have given me, and also that many who have 
heard these sermons may recall associations which 
have inspired and endeared. 

Faithfully, 

J. T. S. 


CONTENTS 


I PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH . . , 

“They have forgotten their resting-place.”— 
Jeremiah 50:6. 

II THE FOUR-SQUARE LIFE ...... 

“And thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with 
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is 
the first commandment.”— Mark 12:30. 

“And the city lieth four-square, and the length 
is as large as the breadth.”— Revelation 21:16. 

III WINGS LIKE THE EAGLE. 

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew 
their strength; they shall mount up with 
wings as eagles; they shall run and not be 
weary; they shall walk and not faint.”— 
Isaiah 40:31. 

IV A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH . 

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: 
for the first heaven and the first earth were 
passed away, and there was no more sea.”— 
Revelation 21:1. 

V BALAAM AND GOD’S WILL .... 

“And Balaam and the son of Beor they slew 
with the sword.”— Numbers 31:8. 

VI UNITING WITH THE CHURCH . . . 

“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.”— 
Psalm 107:2. 

VII THE THOUGHTS OF GOD. 

“How precious are Thy thoughts unto me, O 
God; how great is the sum of them. If I 
should count them, they are more in number 


PAGE 

11 

23 

33 

45 

54 

67) 

77 


IX 



X 


CONTENTS 


VII THE THOUGHTS OF GOD [ Continued ] 

than the sand; when I awake I am still with 
Thee.”— Psalm 139:17, 18. 

VIII THE JOY OF RESTORATION .... 

“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault 
ye which are spiritual restore such an one in 
the spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest 
thou also be tempted.”— Galatians 6:1. 

IX MY PRESENCE SHALL GO WITH THEE 

“If Thy presence go not with me, carry me 
not up hence.”— Exodus 33:14-15. 

X THE APPEAL OF THE GOSPEL MINIS¬ 
TRY . 

“Then said I, Here am I; send me.”— Isaiah 

6 : 8 . 

XI RESPONSIBILITIES OF GREAT RICHES 

“All these things have I observed; what lack 
I yet?”—M atthew 19:20. 

XII UNITY IN SERVICE. 

“The work is great and large, and we are sep¬ 
arated upon the wall, one far from another.” 
—Nehemiah 4:19. 

XIII THE HUMILITY OF THE SOUL . . . 

“He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” 
— Luke 18:14. 

XIV THE CONVICTION OF SIN. 

“And when He is come, He will reprove the 
world of sin, and of righteousness, and of 
judgment; of sin, because they believe not on 
Me”— -John 16:8, 9. 

XV FAITH REWARDED. 

“Then touched He their eyes, saying, ‘Accord¬ 
ing to your faith be it unto you.’ ”— Matthew 
9:29. 

XVI GOD-GIVEN PERSONALITY .... 

“And man became a living soul.”— Genesis 2:7. 


page 

84 

95 

103 

116 

I2S 

137 

148 

158 


l68 






CONTENTS 


xi 


XVII 

XVIII 

XIX 

XX 

XXI 

XXII 


THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT . 

“But ye shall receive power when the Holy 
Spirit is come upon you.”— Acts i:8. 

THE SUBMISSIVE LIFE.. 

“Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to 
fulfil all righteousness.”— Matthew 3:15. 

FAITH ESTABLISHED.. 

“That your faith should not stand in the wis¬ 
dom of men, but in the power of God.”—I Co- 
RINTIANS 2:5. 

YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW 

“The latter glory of this house shall be greater 
than the former, saith Jehovah of hosts; and 
in this place will I give peace.”— Haggai 2:9. 
“Only be strong and very courageous, to ob¬ 
serve to do according to all the law, which 
Moses, my servant, commanded thee; turn not 
from it to the right hand or to the left, that 
thou mayest have good success whithersoever 
thou goest.”— Joshua 2:7. 

CHRISTIAN ESTABLISHMENT . . . 

“When thou art converted, strengthen thy 
brethren.”— Luke 22:32. 

THE SOUL’S VISION. 

“And the Lord opened the eyes of the young 
man and he saw.”—II Kings 6:17. 


PAGE 

180 

194 

208 

215 

233 

242 








PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 













































PLACES OF QUIET 
STRENGTH 


I 

PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

“They have forgotten their resting place.” 

—Jeremiah 50:6. 

“They have forgotten their resting place/’ These 
words were spoken by Jeremiah. You will find them 
in the fiftieth chapter of the prophecy that bears his 
name, the sixth verse. Let me read the preceding 
words that we may have a frame for this picture: 

“In those days and in that time, saith the Lord, 
the children of Israel shall come, they and the 
children of Judah together, going and weeping: 
they shall go and seek the Lord their God. 

“They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces 
thitherward, saying, come and let us join ourselves 
to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not 
be forgotten. 

“My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds 
have caused them to go astray, they have turned 
them away on the mountains : they have gone from 
mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting 
place.” 


11 


12 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

The Scripture prompts us to consider this morning 
the subject of “Places of Quiet Strength. ,, We are 
told that one of the quietest of all physical places is in 
the very centre of the cyclone. Have you ever seen a 
bird’s nest swinging above the water-fall? Have you 
ever known a triumphant, quiet soul although living in 
the very midst of the rush and confusion of life? Let 
me read a hymn to you: Harriet Beecher Stowe never 
wrote more beautiful words than these: 

“When winds are raging o’er the upper ocean, 

And billows wild contend with angry roar; . 

’Tis said, far down, beneath the wild commotion, 
That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore. 

“Far, far beneath the noise of tempests dieth, 

And silver waves chime ever peacefully, 

And no rude storm, how fierce soe’er it flieth, 
Disturbs the Sabbath of that deeper sea. 

“So in the heart that knows thy love, O Purest, 
There is a temple, sacred evermore; 

And all the babble of life’s angry voices 

Dies in hushed stillness at its peaceful door. 

“Far, far away, the roar of passion dieth, 

And loving thoughts rise kind and peacefully, 

And no rude storm, how fierce soe’er it flieth, 
Disturbs the soul that dwells, O Lord, in Thee.” 

Such words are well nigh inspired, and impress upon 
us our morning truth. 

There was a Hindoo woman, who, out of the chaos 
and darkness of her surrounding, found Christ and 
learned those words of Scripture: 


PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 13 

“Peace I leave with thee; my peace I give unto 
thee, not as the world giveth give I unto thee. Let 
not your heart be troubled, neither let it be 
afraid.” 

Later she learned such words as these: 

“Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy- 
laden and I will give you rest.” 

and one day studying the songs of that great bard 
inspired by Jehovah, she read these words: 

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; 

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; 

He leadeth me beside the still waters; 

He restoreth my soul.” 

Into her mind there came the inspiration of another 
song, and she took*her pen and wrote: 

“In the secret of His presence, 

How my soul delights to hide. 

O, how precious are the lessons 
Which I learn at Jesus’ side. 

Earthly cares can never vex me, 

Neither trials lay me low, 

For when Satan comes to tempt me, 

To the secret place I go.” 

and the words of that poem have gone around the 
Christian world in a hymn to quiet the troubled heart. 
Yes, a Hindu convert learned the meaning in our text: 
“They have forgotten their resting place.” 

First, let us consider this fact, Jesus Christ’s defini¬ 
tion of rest was not temporal nor confining. We say 
we will take a vacation. There ought to be a working 


14 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

philosophy, or, a philosophy of work, so that in 
every business and in every life sometime during the 
year every individual soul might get away for a time 
from his or her accustomed task. We speak thus of a 
vacation. It seems adjusted to the age and day in 
which we live. Christ meant the vacation period of 
life to be a regular, constant experience of relaxation. 
We err when we merely call attention to the worship¬ 
fulness of the Sabbath Day, for God made the day, a 
time when rest should be given man. God meant the 
Sabbath for man, not man for the Sabbath. He did 
not in His eternal philosophy divide time into seven 
periods and say we must take one-seventh to bow 
before Him. Not at all. He so constructed human life, 
body, mind and soul that the man needs one-seventh 
of life’s time for rest, quiet, thoughtfulness and rev¬ 
erence, and thus He made the Sabbath for man. 

God’s system is seen in regularity and constancy. 
The day follows the night. The sun rises and the 
calendar tells us exactly when. We know that storms 
are a result of physical conditions. We have a great 
period of heat, and moisture rises in the air. Then 
the heavens become too heavy to contain themselves, 
and torrents come down to moisten the parched earth 
and refresh it again. It is God’s law in action. The 
weather-bureau does not guess, but facts and conditions 
reveal and speak. 

Last Sabbath afternoon I was going from one college 
appointment to another in the East, and a terrific storm 
came down upon us. I never saw it rain more furi¬ 
ously and continuously. Going through the streets of 
Old Cambridge our automobile had to go through 


PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 15 

streams of water, but we had been experiencing two 
or three days of intense heat, and this down-pour was 
the natural result. God sometimes works in what may 
seem a catastrophe, but thoughtfulness reminds us that 
the regularity of forces are giving vent to pent-up 
conditions, for regularity is God’s law. Now if God’s 
law of order has made this world what it is and is 
continuing so to do, we must consider more thought¬ 
fully the resting places which God has made in human 
life. 

Have you ever stopped to think of what a wonderful 
thing sleep is ? Our bodies, minds and nerves are worn 
out, but, when in the exhaustion of our forces we lie 
down and sleep, we awake perhaps eight hours after¬ 
ward rested and face other tasks easily'and willingly. 
y/t work hour after hour, on into the night, and are 
wearied again, and sleep comes and again we are rested. 
The great natural sources of life are the regular sources 
of recuperation, readjustment and recreation. These 
are God’s great natural influences of power in the 
world. Why do we overlook this? ‘‘Thy people have 
forgotten their resting place.” 

There is nothing in all this world so beautiful as a 
little child. I cannot understand how those to whom 
God has not sent little children can possibly live on 
through life without adopting them. You are robbing 
your lives of the greatest blessing “home” can ever 
define! You are failing to enrich your life with the 
sweetest and holiest gift of God. O, men and women, 
think of it! It is not so much for the child that I speak 
now; it is for motherhood and fatherhood. There 
are few people who can grow up in a home without 


16 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

children, without becoming supremely selfish. There 
are some, thank God, but very few. If God has not sent 
into your life the greatest gift He ever gives, in the 
form of a little child, consider seriously this truth. A 
baby’s hand upon your face, as Victor Hugo pointed 
out, has more of God in it and more of human joy in 
it than any other touch of life. If you have not 
known it, think and pray about it. Children bring the 
joy and poise of life to a home. Life’s resting places 
are not in the extremes, nor found on special occasions; 
not in the Niagara Falls, nor the Glacier Parks, nor 
even in the great rolling sea, but the natural gifts of 
God come right along life’s way, in the ordinary, the 
commonplace, the near-at-hand. 

Yesterday, looking out from my study window, I 
saw the far-reaches of blue Lake Michigan. For a 
moment I forgot it was Chicago and that the room 
was the study of the pastor of the Fourth Church; that 
we were here on the Drive; that those were apartment 
houses before me. I dreamed a moment and saw 
Venice, Naples, the Mediterranean. I saw before me 
places to which the world travels to gain beauty. Later 
in the day, I went by thousands of people, children 
playing in the sand, tired mothers and fathers lying on 
the grass. Great lessons are these, and how near at 
hand. Tens of thousands, yea, hundreds of thousands, 
filling this great city with one-fortieth of the people of 
the United States, live, happy and joyful, right here 
on the banks of the Lake. Then I thought of the 
blue lake again; of its beauty and expanse and glory. 
I joined in the mirth of children; sympathised with 
mothers and fathers talking with their children; saw 


PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 17 

their love-looks as childhood and youth came back to 
them again. Ere I knew it I was thanking God for our 
city and our wonderful lake. What a beauty all about 
us! What a place in which to live! What a life to live 
with others. And my heart broke forth in its own 
song, unexpressed—“May Jesus Christ Be Praised!” 

Yes, and it was all right here. We do not have to go 
away to enjoy it. I have had such a longing lately to 
stay here right through the summer, and have had to 
contend with myself to think it right to go away for 
rest and recreation. The longing of the soul took pos¬ 
session for the time in the joy of the present, just here 
where we live and where human hearts are suffering 
and glad, and where the ripple of the laughter of chil¬ 
dren outrivals the ripple of the wavelets of Lake Michi¬ 
gan. Yes, it is a wonderful place. The birds are 
singing here; the joys of life are here. Have we not 
forgotten? “My people have forgotten their resting 
place.” 

We get so tired with the duties of the day, with the 
cares of life, with the ordering of food, with the 
making of beds, with the tireless constancy of a tele¬ 
phone, with replies to questions, that we forget that 
there is a resting place in every home, even in a noisy 
apartment because partitions are too thin. There is a 
resting place everywhere to those who have the soul 
to live—“In the secret of His presence, where the soul 
delights to hide.” 

Yes, you say, “but we are living in a whirlwind.” 
Well, make it a cyclone, if you will, but remember the 
calmest place may be in the centre of the cyclone. 


18 


PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 


“Quiet, Lord, my froward heart; 

Make me teachable and mild, 

Do we know the secret place? Have we forgotten 
“our resting place ?” “In Thy presence is fulness of 

joy-” 

It is wonderful how we can control conditions if we 
will. We sometimes have seen a dear old grandmother, 
whose quiet, lovely face was a benediction in the home, 
and in came a rollicking dirty-faced boy, dragging mud 
and everything that a boyish nature carries with it. 
But, the grandmother did not scold him! She said, 
“Donald, come here a minute/' and then with her dear 
lips and sweet face she kissed young Donald on the 
forehead, and he forgot his restlessness for a moment, 
and more quietly went up stairs to his room. Then he 
went down and kissed her dear face and said, “Grand¬ 
mother, you certainly are it. I am glad I have you.” 
Is she not a benediction in his life? What gave that 
grandmother that poise? She did not like mud, nor 
care for his noise; she even missed some stitches in her 
knitting, but there was something in her soul that gave 
her poise and charm, for she had her “resting place,” 
not in the turmoil of the city without, but in the quiet 
of the soul within. 

Notice another thing. The resting place of God is 
not only a place of poise and quietness, but it is a great 
adjuster of the difficulties of human life. Get away, 
men say, from surroundings. See streams, look at 
stars, see mountains, behold the various colours of the 
ocean—do anything. This is all wholesome advice, if 
possible, but it is not the only way. The religion of 


19 


PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

Jesus Christ is a great controlling influence so that 
when we cannot get away to the place of diversion we 
may find the adjusting force within and may be calm 
and strong—“In the secret of His presence.” 

It is said that when Secretary Hughes spoke in the 
recent Peace Conference, not frequently and in very 
few words, so controlled was his manner that many 
who had never know his type of life before said, “How 
can we get together?” It is wonderful to have a poise 
of life which puts wrangling natures at ease, and this 
without calling attention to personality. 

Of course our lives would be happier from every 
standpoint if we could make things just as we want 
them. We can control our friendships but not our 
relationships in this world. If home were a little 
different; if relatives were less insistent; if there were 
not problems in the servant question; if wages were 
always according to our scale; if children were never 
irritable; if teachers were always ideal; if food were 
always cooked properly. But, this is not true to life. 
There are all kinds of difficulties and readjustments 
necessary in life, and life is just what we make it 
after all. 

God says to us to-day, “You have forgotten your 
resting place.” “I am a God who can meet conditions 
as they are.” In this great contest of life there are 
those who are always destroying peace because actual 
things are not ideal, but the quiet place may be an 
adjuster. With it we may iron out the wrinkles and 
gain the smile of contentment. Paul said, “I have 
learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be con¬ 
tent.” No man or woman has contentment given to 


20 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

start with as a gift. Even Paul was a long time 
“learning” it. 

This poise of the soul, this resting place, means 
that irritable mothers can somehow speak gently to 
children; that angry, unguarded fathers may learn 
patience, even if things are not just as they should be 
at home. Love is in his heart and poise means “father¬ 
hood.” The true father has a gentility, a greatness of 
the soul that will adjust conditions. 

A great musician can sit down at an organ and bring 
out rarest melodies and harmonies from minor keys. 
One of the most remarkable musicians I ever knew 
was a lady who once played the hymns for us at a 
Student Conference at Silver Bay, Lake George. I 
asked her if she could play the piano at the morning 
service. She said, “I will try.” I knew she was a 
great musician, although there were many problems 
to contend with in the use of that old piano. When 
she tried it, there was a gasp. This particular pi^ce of 
wood and ivory was so out if tune, it was impossible to 
play it. But, she studied it without saying a word. I 
was busy and fully intended to get a piano tuner, but 
had forgotten my intention, but she sat down at the 
piano the next Sunday morning, as the service opened, 
and played it perfectly without a single note of discord. 

I noticed she changed different octaves and notes, but 
not a single false note was struck, and every one was 
delighted. There was something in her touch anyway 
that was the soul of music. I said, “what did you do?” 
“I did not do much of anything,” she replied. “I just 
studied the dear old thing the whole afternoon and 
learned it, and then left out the notes that were out of 


21 


PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

tune and used the others. I really used about five hours 
on it, but you did not hear any discords did you?” 
What a lesson! Why, a poor musician, or a little life 
would have said, “You will have to excuse me. I have 
some talent. With such an instrument I would ruin 
my reputation.” But not that rare soul! That mother 
who could hold in her arms worried, wilful children 
and could guide and watch them through all the years 
until they became noble men and women, looked at the 
old piano with its discords as something that could be 
easily controlled and conquered. 

My dear people, such is life. Not what life is, but . 
what we are. Have we not forgotten our resting place ? 
Listen, once more. Of course, we do not want sorrow. 
Of course, we do not want sickness. Of course, we do 
not want limitations or difficulties or losses and mis¬ 
understandings. No, but we have a resting place. It 
is the place of poise and power and reserve, and these 
mean God. Look away sometimes at yonder moun¬ 
tain, or at the sea. Behold the rising sun which in its 
meridian strength draws water from the ocean into the 
far-away clouds. It does not make any noise. It rests 
in its mighty strength. When an automobile is out of 
order, it makes a great deal of noise; when it is in 
order, it is comparatively noiseless. How about the 
sun and the stars with their millions and billions of 
miles of infinite distances? Are they noisy, or fretful, 
or worried? 

Have we forgotten our resting place ? “In the secret 
of His presence.” “Great peace have they that love 
Thy law.” Ungodly people are noisy and perturbed, 
not Christlike souls. “Be still and know that I am 


22 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

God.” “My people have forgotten their resting place.” 
“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is 
stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee.” “The 
Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” “Let not your 
heart be troubled.” “Be anxious for nothing.” 

Let us Remember our “Resting Place.” 


II 


THE FOUR-SQUARE LIFE 

“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first 
commandment.”— Mark 12:30. 

“And the city lieth four-square, and the length is 
as large as the breadth.”— Revelation 21 :i 6 . 

There is a four-square measure of life. There is in 
this definition that which is complete in human attain¬ 
ment and character. No one is perfect, and no one 
ever has been save Jesus of Nazareth, who was God 
incarnate. “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt 
among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the 
Only Begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and 
truth.” The true measure of a life is known in its four¬ 
fold character. 

The four-square life is the life in which body, mind, 
heart and soul work for the highest and best. It is the 
life that is right and complete physically, mentally, 
morally and spiritually. 

One of the important battles in history was won be¬ 
cause the great general was wise enough to fight with 
a four-side front. That whole open line faced the 
enemy, but by some subtle and adroit gift of general¬ 
ship, surmising the purpose of the enemy, he knew if 
they were to strike from the rear, and thus penetrate, to 
23 


24 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

oppose this he must form a square with fighting ranks 
facing every direction. The opposing foe, knowing 
nothing of this, sought to penetrate the left flank and 
met with resistance; they then sought the right flank 
and met with the same resistance. Finally, expecting to 
find the hollow opening, they attacked the rear to find 
the same opposition, for that general had made every 
side of that square strong for defence and the battle 
was won. 

The great difficulty with human character is that 
men are so often only three-quarters men. The enemy 
finds the weak side. Men are satisfied with attaining 
an average standard in the comparative degree, but do 
not attain the standard which God has set up for 
character and right. They compare their own charac¬ 
ter with the character of others and seem satisfied with 
the comparative test. There is a weak side. Let us 
illustrate: 

Take for instance a man with marked physical de¬ 
velopment. His chest is broad and full; his breathing 
is deep; his heart action regular. He has well-developed 
muscles in arms, limbs and trunk—all is perfect. In 
looking at his body we see an Apollo in strength and 
grace. He is able to meet every physical demand in 
life and meet it well. We look at him in admiration and 
wonder, but as we eat with him and converse with him, 
it happens that this Apollo in figure and giant in 
strength uses very bad grammar. He eats with his 
knife and leaves his spoon in his coffee-cup. We notice 
his linen and his finger-nails, and immediately say— 
“Where has he been brought up?” “What is he?” 
He knows nothing apparently except the life of the 


THE FOUR-SQUARE LIFE 25 

prize-ring, and although he can give the nick-names of 
all the men in the fighting ring, and has all base-ball 
knowledge as well, he has little intelligence along other 
lines, and really feels very much out of place outside of 
his own group of society. True, he can wear a dress 
suit, but.it does not look natural on him. He is a 
physical wonder, but otherwise we refrain from esti¬ 
mate. Does a man want his son to be that kind of a 
man? Physical attainment is only one side of the 
square of life. It is an important one, but it is not all. 

A second man comes before us who is perfect 
mentally. He can talk upon any subject and talk in¬ 
telligently. He is a student. He is not tiresome in his 
conversation, but is brilliant, even scintillating. Sud¬ 
denly he coughs deeply and protractedly, and some one 
says, “He is not long for this world; he has no strength, 
no physique.” Well, he has another side of the square, 
but has not the first side. 

Then a third appears. His physical and mental 
development are all one could desire. Here, surely, is 
our man! He has a strong body and a splendid mental 
equipment. He is clear, thoughtful, analytic, wise, 
sympathetic. We have found our man, but, alas! we find 
this man of splendid physical and mental life is morally 
unsound. He disregards the truth which God’s own 
Book has made essential, and which the jurispru¬ 
dence of the ages has approved. We find he cares 
nothing whatever for the great laws of society. Moral¬ 
ity means nothing to him. Life is simply a pleasurable 
affair in which the physical can have its own indulgence 
and freedom. Mentally, too, he is all one could desire, 
but the mind bears no sense of responsibility. He cares 


26 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

nothing for the word “duty.” He has no moral sense. 
If he breaks God’s or man’s law, it is merely a question 
of evading detection in his fear of punishment. 

Many years ago a lad graduated from one of our 
Eastern universities who had taken many prizes in that 
university. He was a youth far beyond his years in 
brilliancy of mind. He was an athlete of no small note 
in the Eastern athletic world, and he graduated among 
the best students of his class, but he was despised by 
every fellow-student; in fact, almost hated by many of 
them. He scarcely had a friend in his entire class. 
When his name was mentioned, the professors turned 
the subject and did not care to discuss him. Why? If 
you had gotten into the close confidence of one of 
those professors, he would have told you, with sorrow, 
that that boy was obsolutely void of any moral char¬ 
acter. He had broken every law of moral standing in 
this university, but had done it in such a slick way and 
covered his tracks so skilfully, that his works could not 
be proved. Everybody knew how rank his life was. 
He lived but a few years after graduation. Of course, 
he was a cynic. Of course, he had no good word for 
another. He was keen and brilliant; splendid on the 
athletic field, but he had no moral sense. He cared not 
for life, save as it afforded him satisfaction and pleas¬ 
ure. He was morally void. I do not think any lad 
ever had sadder parents. They were unconscious, 
thank God, of all that his companions knew of him. 

Over against such a life, cite a young man whose 
moral sense is all one could desire—a man thoughtful 
of God’s laws and to whom the laws of society have 
become the principles of his life. Such a one is 


THE FOUR-SQUARE LIFE 27 

physically strong, mentally clear, and morally pure. 
We say, “There is my man!” But, wait a minute. 
There may be a hollow side to this life. God’s law has 
made life four-square. It is not only the physical, 
mental and moral life, but we have an obligation to 
God which is mysterious and undefined, but which is 
vital if we are to have a four-square manhood. There 
is the spiritual life. 

How many people in this world have just missed 
life’s real meaning, because they have failed to adjust 
themselves to divine things as well as to the conditions 
of human life? They are careful, thoughtful, brilliant, 
but they do not see the great Divine Being who stands 
back of success. They have missed Him. 

How many in human life are physically, mentally 
and morally equipped, who are missing the complete 
life because spiritual things have not been a matter of 
consideration with them. They are logical; they are 
philosophical; they respond to the real. They say they 
are materialists, in the sense that they want to know 
their ground, but the experience of faith is omitted. 
They do not see beyond the things that are material. 
They are not allowing the soul to search for the undis¬ 
covered. They have not the great power of the un¬ 
attained. The defined in life controls the undefined. 
They fail to know that the mysteries of the soul’s 
realities are more vital to us than the things we see and 
feel. The things we love, the books we finger, may be 
taken from us. The child who wraps you with his 
affection; our homes, dearer to us than all else,—every 
one of these things may be taken from us. The 
severings and separations of life relate to the material, 


28 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

but the great infinite realities are always to abide 

with us. 

A woman was standing this last summer in France 
by a little grave, for she had discovered that her boy’s 
remains were there. She did not say a word. She 
stood silently by that grave, then returned to her hotel. 
“Do you want the remains taken back home? ,, “Is 
there anything we can do to comfort you?” asked her 
friend. She answered, “No, there is something more 
vital, more real and more controlling in my love for 
my son, and what he was and did, and is, than any 
material relationship in all the world. Why, my dear 
boy is not buried, he lives in my very soul all the time. 
He is mine, and nothing material can bind him or take 
him from me.” Some of you know something of her 
meaning, something of the vital hold which eternal 
things have upon us. 

I look upon the portrait of my mother, and is it the 
portrait that thrills my heart, as beautiful as that may 
be? After returning from my summer outing, the 
first thing I longed to do, and did, was to get into my 
home and turn on the light and look at her portrait. I 
know not how, but somehow, deep in these souls of 
ours, there is something that death can never separate 
from us. It is undefined; it is unknown, but O, how 
vital and real it is! That is why God put this some¬ 
thing we call “Faith” into the great casket of mystery. 
If we knew and understood and could reach up and 
measure the height and the depth, it would not be what 
it is. “The mysterious city lieth four-square.” All the 
physical beauty of that city has been revealed in the 
marvellous pictures of Revelation—the golden streets, 


THE FOUR-SQUARE LIFE 29 

the gates of pearl, the twelve kinds of precious stones, 
the crystal river! This symbolism is wonderful. The 
mystery has touched the infinite, and somehow, like 
John and Paul, we feel and “see through a glass 
darkly.” “Now we know in part,” but the “then” shall 
come, and when it comes we shall see “face to face.” 
“We shall know even as we are known.” “We shall 
be like Him when we see Him as He is.” 

The highest moral standard is there. Naught that 
defileth shall ever enter there; none whose hands are 
stained; none whose hearts are bereft of purity. 

We may have the three—the physical, the mental 
and the moral, but we must have the spiritual . 

What do we care primarily whether a man plays golf 
on Sunday or not? That is not the real question. 
Here is the question: Does he take the one day in 
seven for personal pleasure, the day which God gave to 
the soul to develop the spiritual side of life? Is he 
physically, mentally and morally all that he should be, 
but void of spiritual attainment? “Remember the 
Sabbath Day to keep it holy.” It is not a cold command 
thrust down by God to enforce obedience from human 
beings. No! It is the loving and wise command to 
seize the opportunity for the human soul to develop the 
spiritual side of life, so that a child of God may be four¬ 
square. It is to protect life so that the enemy cannot 
get in on the hollow side left unprotected. Do you 
leave this out of your child’s life? He is facing school, 
college, the world, with a physical, mental and moral 
development, but what if God is left out? 

After all, the life we live here is very short. I 
talked with a man the other day, seventy-four years 


30 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

old. He said, “My father lived to be ninety-eight, and 
I wish I might have the twenty-four more years, but I 
am now living on borrowed time.” He seemed as well 
and strong as a man of fifty. 

I read the other day of a farm house with a sign 
outside—“Horse for Sale.” A man went to ask about 
the horse, and a very old man came to the door, ninety- 
nine years old. He said, “I do not know much about 
that horse, but I will send out the boy to talk with you.” 
He sent out his son who was eighty years of age. Well, 
it is a New England story. People live to old age and 
live well there. 

A few years ago a member of this parish died in 
her one hundredth year. As I remember, she died on 
the fifteenth of December. If she had lived until 
the twenty-eighth she would have been one hundred. 
I went to her ninety-ninth birthday when she tried 
to blow out her birthday candles. Well, even such 
old age is short-lived. 

But, our human souls are immortal. These three, 
four or five score years are very short, even as the 
grains of sand we pick up on the sea-shore are few 
in number to the sands on the shore. 

What then about this fourth dimension ? How about 
the spiritual life? To consider this truth this very 
church was built. The House of God exists to build 
up our lives and the lives of our children with a true 
sense and interpretation of God. The Lord Jesus 
Christ placed this mystery of heaven within our re¬ 
sponsibility. “The City lieth four-square.” Are we 
protecting our lives on the fourth side? 

Christ came to be the Reconciler. He came to so 


31 


THE FOUR-SQUARE LIFE 

reveal and incarnate (embody) the actual mysterious¬ 
ness of God that men might understand it. That is 
why “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” 
He is the One to give us the power of the interpretation 
of that fourth dimension which we term the spiritual. 

That is the truth we long to convey this morning. 
What are we as God’s people physically, mentally, mor¬ 
ally and spiritually f What is this church doing to 
build us up in the soul’s highest life? We are to reveal 
God to men through Jesus Christ His Son. This re¬ 
sponsibility is yours and mine. 

A few years ago at a commencement at Yale, they 
were having a class reunion. The fifty-year men 
were back. It had been a record class in the number 
of men who had lived. They were sitting at the 
class reunion dinner, joking, as men out of college 
many years will joke, calling each other by old college 
nick-names again; when a white-bearded man, with 
snow-white hair, came in and stood before the table. 
Some of the men nudged each other, saying, “Bill, 
who is that?” or, “Jack, what’s his name—was he in 
our class?” The man spoke and said, “Boys, you do 
not know me, do you?” They were ashamed of them¬ 
selves, but some one spoke up and said, “No, we do 
not. Tell us.” Hesitating, he said: “Wait a min¬ 
ute,” and then going to the door he called to a lad 
outside—“Jack, come in here!” In walked a splendid 
young fellow, alert and strong, and stood before them. 
The father said, “Jack, smile,” and instantly the crowd 
shouted, “It’s Jerry! We all know you! Look at that 
smile; that body! Why, he is Jerry right over again.” 

The Almighty, the Eternal, the Unknown, Unrecog- 


32 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

nised God is before the world to-day, and only Christ 
can reveal Him. For God so loved the world that He 
gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth 
on Him might see and know eternal life, and through 
that Son of God, men will see the Father. “He that 
hath seen Me hath seen the Father,” and this is the 
meaning of the fourth great dimension of life. 

The curtain of life must be lifted that we may see 
Eternity and the Holy City which standeth four-square 
—physically, mentally, morally and spiritually. Then 
we will respond in our own souls, “Here am I for Thou 
hast made me worthy.” And we shall “love the Lord 
our God with all our hearts, our souls, our minds and 
our strength and our neighbours as ourselves.” 


Ill 


WINGS LIKE THE EAGLE 

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew 
their strength; they shall mount up with wings as 
eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall 
walk and not faint.”— Isaiah 40:31. 

God’s word draws some of its most remarkable illus¬ 
trations from the realm of natural life. The ocean, 
the mountains, the oak of the forest, the cedars of 
Lebanon, the cattle on a thousand hills, the fish, the 
sparrow, the lily, the blade of grass—nature holds first 
place in the word-picturing of the Bible. 

The exactness of usage is also to be noted in this 
connection. When strength of physical force is to 
be illustrated, the writer seeks for lessons from the 
lion—the king of beasts—and so when renewed energy 
and lasting ambition are sought, we read of the eagle, 
the sole monarch of all the feathered tribe. 

The eagle is sometimes used in Scripture to show 
the care of God for His children, as in the song of 
Moses, where He refers to His care over the children 
of Israel, He says: “As an eagle that stirreth up her 
nest, that fluttereth over her young, He spread abroad 
His wings; He took them, He bore them on His pin¬ 
ions; so the Lord alone did lead Him, and there was 
no strange God with Him.” Picture, if you will, those 
wild crags of the region about Mount Sinai, with their 
33 


34 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

steeple-like pinnacles of rock; look in upon those deep 
fastnesses on the very top ledges; glance at that nest 
upon the shelf of that crevice; see the parent-birds as 
they hover far above, watching over the nest for safety. 
To the North, East, South and West all is one wild, 
unsheltered, mountain wilderness. Moses had ascended 
those peaks. Much of his earlier life had been spent 
in the companionship of nature. He knew the strength 
of the figure, for his inmost soul cried out, and thus it 
was that he used that which appealed to him with the 
most force. 

Perhaps he had watched the eagle in her dealing 
with her young. Climbing up those crags he had 
been strangely fascinated, as all unexpectedly he had 
come near to that mountain home, and sheltered from 
view he had watched those parent-birds as they crowded 
their young from the nest, and gave them their first 
lessons in soaring. It had left a very vivid impression 
on his mind. It now comes back to him, as he tells 
in song of the goodness of God, the Great Parent, to 
the children of Israel. 

The eagle is also pictured in God’s Word as illus¬ 
trating the sudden and dire attack of the enemies of 
Israel, coming upon them in punishment; swift, 
strong, without warning, fatal. His swiftness is also 
used to show the sudden loss of riches. His baldness 
,to show the increasing calamities of the wicked. The 
) height and seclusion of His dwelling to show the fan¬ 
cied security of the wicked. His hastening to the prey 
to reveal the swiftness of man’s days. He was enumer¬ 
ated among the list of unclean birds in Israel. Atten¬ 
tion is also called to his being the royal emblem of 


WINGS LIKE THE EAGLE 35 

the Roman armies. But it is not along these lines 
that we wish to consider this subject, but rather to 
learn from the natural characteristics of his life some 
of the lessons Scripture, together with the science of 
birds teach us. 

Realising this, “so it shall be with us if we wait 
upon the Lord,” as our text suggests. We read in Job, 
chapter thirty-nine, verses twenty-seven to thirty, 
“Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make 
her nest on high? She dwelleth on the rock and hath 
her lodging there, upon the crag of the rock and the 
stronghold. From thence she spieth out the prey; her 
eyes behold it afar off. Her young ones also suck up 
blood; and where the slain are, there is she.” 

A HOME ON THE ROCK 

Together with our text, the first thought here is, 
“mounting upward.’’ She ever aimeth upward as she 
starts to fly. Her highway is in the clouds. The 
avenue of her parade is in the clear upper air. She 
looks beneath her to see others; her own course ever 
lieth above. When she darts below, it is quickly to 
ascend again, and although she knows the earth, and 
lives from the earth, she spends her time above. Job 
goes on to say, “She makes her nest on high; she 
dwelleth on the rock and hath her lodging there, upon 
the crag of the rock and the stronghold.” 

Not satisfied with soaring herself, her home must 
be safe “on the rock.” True, the beasts of the earth 
could quickly tear that nest to pieces and devour the 
young. True, the blasts of the forest can fell even 
the huge trees. But, look at that time-worn, weather- 


36 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

beaten, torrent-washed rock! What has ever harmed 
it? There it stands like an eternal sentinel. Let the 
enemy come: they cannot ascend that cliff. Let the 
storm beat it: it cannot rend that storm-king. Let the 
rain fall: the mother-eagle is there upon the nest to 
cover the young, and the rock foundation knows no 
fear. The clear, breezy air will soon dry the nest, for it 
is high up on the rock. The nest is the home. A home 
on the rock. What a thought! 

See that human life trying to make a home. What 
has been the trouble? Habit has torn the weavings of 
that nest. Sin has blown it asunder. Wild beasts have, 
already reached out their awful terrors to frighten the 
young. The serpent has even hissed near them and 
shown his treacherous fangs. The parents have become 
discouraged and forlorn. Stop! Wretched one! Look 
yonder at the eagle’s nest. It is on the rock. Where is 
your home built? Listen! The Saviour of men is 
speaking: ‘‘And the rain descended, and the floods 
came, and the winds blew and beat upon the house, and 
it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.” “For in 
the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion, 
in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me; He 
shall set me up upon a rock.” “Oh! come, let us 
sing unto the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the 
Rock of our salvation.” 

Cry to God, with the eagle, not for yourself alone, 
but for your home. “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let 
me hide myself in Thee.” Yes, she “makes her nest on 
high, dwelleth on the rock, and hath her lodging there, 
upon the crag of the rock and the stronghold.” 

That rock-bound home, however, must be a place 


WINGS LIKE THE EAGLE 37 

of training as well as a safe abode. The eagle’s life 
resembles man in the slow development of the young, 
as well as in its great age. Eagles have been known to 
live a century, according to our best naturalists. The 
maturity of their young is not attained until they are 
about three years of age; in fact, the true plumage does 
not appear until that time in most branches of the 
family. 

THE EAGLE’S FIRST FLIGHT 

But the parent-bird urges them to flight at the 
appropriate time. This is attempted in various ways. 
She crowds them from the nest. She places their food 
far enough from them so that the eaglet must reach out 
from the nest to get it. She gains their attention as 
she soars out toward the sun, each time going a little 
farther than before. She even pushes them off from 
the nest, so that they are forced to use their wings. 
The thought is not accurate that she urges them to fall 
from the nest and then quickly swoops under them. 
Without doubt, she frequently bears them on her wing; 
or, rather, on her shoulder or back, as they become 
tired. But, her aim is always to have them start to 
fly upward. “Like as an eagle stirreth up her nest, 
fluttereth over her young, spreads abroad her wings, 
taketh them, beareth them on her wings,” is all true to 
nature, but “she spreadeth abroad her wings” that they 
may do the same; she takes them and bears them on her 
pinions when they fail or are weak. 

Thus the home-nest is the place for training the child 
to do for himself. What if that mother-bird saw, 
after frequent urging, as the months went by, that 


38 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

there was no desire on the part of the eaglet to do 
his part, then there would* be need of force, for if 
that bird did not start it would soon waste away and 
die. Force may be needed to show the young thing 
the use of its wings. 

It is said that in the northern country of Asia one 
family of the great eagles is in the habit of going 
to a distant spot and plucking a mountain thorn, sharp 
and long, and, bringing it to the nest, she buries the 
same in the soft down and grass which lines its sides; 
some of that down, perchance, taken from her own 
breast to make that home comfortable and warm. 
Then, as the young birds, now needing the exercise 
of their wings and limbs, settle back in comfort, she 
crowds them on to the hidden thorn, and they are 
aroused. 

May this thought not be used to comfort some of 
us as to the great Heavenly Father, as at times He 
may see us settling down amid life’s comforts, instead 
of using our gifts for Him; and ought we to complain 
when we feel the prick which prompts us to service 
and life, which, perhaps, prompts us away from that 
soul-lethargy which means death? 

But, as I said, the bird urges the younger bird to 
fly upward. How many there are in this broad world 
who want their children to be all that they ought to 
be, as the world looks at life, who do not teach them 
to fly upward? They want the body to be right; the 
mind to be superior; the heart to be gentle and kind, 
but what of the soul? Are they teaching that younger 
life to fly upward? 

A youth in one of our leading Eastern colleges was 


WINGS LIKE THE EAGLE 39 

about to graduate. A serious accident to a classmate 
had awakened a deep religious feeling throughout the 
class. This young man was approached by a friend 
as to giving his life to God and His service. He made 
reply: “Oh, no! I don’t believe in that sort of thing. 
The last thing my father said to me on leaving home, 
four years ago, was not to get mixed up with any 
of their religious nonsense,” and I guess I will stand 
by the governor.” Had that father pushed the lad 
from the home-nest to fly upward? If the older bird 
has taught the eaglet to fly upward, there need be no 
fear as to the storm or foe, for once having learned 
the power of upward flight, that life will never be satis¬ 
fied with the lower abiding-place, nor the lower air. 
The child is safe for time and eternity. 

One thought of comfort to those who feel lonely 
and forlorn because the home-nest has been vacated: 
Think of the joy of soaring youth—that joy you have 
made possible. Your treasure is not lost because it has 
flown. Do you not remember the happiness when 
first you began to fly into new air of thought and 
knowledge? Of course, much that you did now seems 
old to you—the freshness of it is all gone—but that 
young life is in its first great joy of upward flight. 

The great strength of the wing is alluded to in our 
text: “They shall mount up with wings as eagles.” 
Without its wings, the eagle would not be an eagle, as 
far as any of its possibilities are concerned. It might 
long to soar, but it could not. It might be upon the 
mountain-top, but if it fell without wings, it could 
never regain its position. It could not fight with the 
beasts of the wood, if it could not fly from their attack. 


40 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 
It would soon become battered by the very winds and 
storms in which it revels, had it not wings. 

The power of the eagle’s wing is marvellous. Natu¬ 
ralists tell us that it is equalled by few parallels in the 
world of life or mechanism. This bird, with wings 
measuring some seven feet from tip to tip, flies in the 
very teeth of the driving storm with perfect ease. 
Not satisfied with flying or sailing with the wind, she 
openly defies the storm. She looks down upon the 
black cloud beneath her lofty eyrie, and then, after an 
upward flight, sinks into its very blackness to rise in 
battlings against it. Yonder the mountain-ash gives 
way under the terrific blasts of the storm; but, the 
eagle, with her wild cry, sweeps into the very face of 
the storm in open combat. 

THE SWEEPING WINGS 

Think of the speed of those wings as well. Is it 
strange that Moses was told to cry out to the Israelites 
that if they were disobedient “their enemies should 
come down upon them swift as an eagle’s flight” ? Job 
tells us in the verses already quoted that “from the 
crag she seeketh her prey, and her eyes behold afar 
off.” 

The method of obtaining food, often resorted to by 
the bald, or white-headed, eagle of our country, well 
illustrates this speed. 

Perched high upon some distant point, upon the 
highest naked tree of the crag, this bird views the 
landscape all about, until it sees the osprey about to 
dart for the fish in the stream below. Keenly he 
watches, and as the successful fisherman, with triumph- 


WINGS LIKE THE EAGLE 41 

ant cry, rises from the water with its victim firmly 
held, the eagle swiftly follows, and, free from all in¬ 
cumbrance, soon reaches the victor with its prize. 
Circling about it with threatening attitude, the smaller 
bird in fear drops the fish, whereupon the eagle, with 
careful, swift aim, descends and captures the fish be¬ 
fore it reaches the earth or stream. 

Its speed has frequent illustration likewise in its 
bold attack when driven by hunger and want. The 
golden eagle has been the most known in this capacity. 
It has been seen to snatch the hare from almost the 
very jaws of the pursuing pack of dogs. It has 
snatched infants from their mothers who left them 
only for a moment and had removed but a few feet 
away. It has stolen the lamb from the very side of the 
shepherd, armed as he was with his strong staff, but 
ere he could wield a blow, its strong wings had carried 
eagle and lamb beyond his reach. Again, with Job, 
we repeat as he speaks of the years, “they fly as swift 
as ships, as eagles that hasten to the prey.” 

Again our text says: “They that wait upon the Lord 
shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with 
wings as eagles.” This strength shall be ours—tireless, 
constant. Is it not true then that God's strength is 
made perfect in weakness? No figure of natural 
strength could mean more to us than the eagle’s wing. 
With such shall we mount upward, if we wait on Him. 

SOLITUDE 

Again, the eagle is above all birds—the one which 
dwells in solitude. He dwells afar from man and 
beast. He flies often into the wilderness. John writes 


42 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

in Revelation: “And there were given to the woman 
the two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into 
the wilderness unto her place.” The wilderness is her 
place. She knows what it is to be solitary. How 
many of us there are who are afraid to be alone! We 
cry, “society!” Yes, and the world would be a strange 
place if we had not social lives, but God pity the man 
who is afraid to face the realities of his life alone at 
times. The social fever of our day is due largely to a 
natural environment, and it is all right. We would 
not have it otherwise; but, do not let your life with 
others rob you of solitary thought. Sometimes our 
continuance of sociability acts as a sort of stimulant to 
a sin-sick body, and life, and a time of solitude would 
reveal the true life as it is and give the possibility of 
one’s coming to himself. Solomon tells us that “the 
way of the eagle is the air.” That way is a solitary 
way. 

IN THE HEART OF THE SUN 

The most marvellous faculty of the eagle we have 
not yet touched. We refer to her vision. Alone among 
birds, she can look without fear into the very fiercest 
brightness of the sun. She takes great voyages out 
toward the sun, with her eyes fixed thereon. Instead 
of seeming to deaden her vision, it seems to quicken it. 
She sees her prey from afar. She watches her young 
from the highest heavens. Her vision surpasses the 
understanding and analysis of the oculist. God framed 
that wonderful eye; man never could. That eye is not 
annoyed by the flash of the vivid lightning; not if the 
flash is at her side. The upward glance of the eagle 


43 


WINGS LIKE THE EAGLE 

to the sun is said to arouse all her inward power, and 
awaken her physical activity. This glance is the secret 
of that very renewing life which so ennobles the bird. 
Weariness and faintness, the very thoughts of our 
text, are dispelled by that glance at the meridian sun. 

Rev. John MacNeal tells us in one of his sermons 
of an eaglet which was captured by an old Scotch 
hunter in the highlands of his home land. The man 
brought it home to his child for a pet. Having noth¬ 
ing for a cage, but an old house, latticed years before 
for hens and chickens, he made this the home of the 
young eagle. Months passed and the boy and the eagle 
grew fond of each other. Months grew into years. 
The bird had become large and full-grown, but seemed 
perfectly contented with its narrow home and daily 
food. One day the boy let the eagle out into the yard. 
He seemed afraid to stretch his legs. He seemed 
alarmed as he tried to spread his great, broad wings. 
At last they placed him on the stone wall of the garden. 
With an effort he descended to the ground. The sun 
was rising higher and higher, for the day was young 
as yet. In time the eagle walked back into his accus¬ 
tomed pen, apparently perfectly satisfied. The next 
day when the sun was high in the heavens, the boy 
opened the pen again, and after urging the eagle out, 
placed him on the wall as he looked into the face of the 
great sun. It seemed bewildered for a moment. Then, 
with almost frightened enthusiasm, it stretched forth 
its great wings, and in a moment more, with its eyes 
still gazing on the sun, it mounted upward. On and 
on it went. The lad, helpless and overcome, cried in 
vain for his return. He watched the bird, until, a tiny 


44 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

speck between him and the sun, it disappeared alto¬ 
gether. The eagle was gone forever. It had gazed 
into the heart of the sun. No longer the pen for its 
home. It evermore would dwell on the mountain-tops. 

Where is your life? Are you bounding your talents 
and gifts (God-given gifts) by man’s surrounding? 
Look at Jesus Christ, the Son of Righteousness. Look 
into His heart of burning love. Listen: “And I, if I 
be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” Mount on 
those wings with your eye fixed on Him. Soar! Soar 
higher! Mount up with wings like eagles! “For I am 
come that ye might have life, and that ye might have 
it more abundantly.” 


IV 

A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH 

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the 
first heaven and the first earth were passed away, 
and there was no more sea.”— Revelation 21 :i. 


There are five great truths in this text: 


First : 

We find the thought of vision— “I saw a 
new heaven and a new earth.” 

Second: 

The thought of novelty—“I saw a new 
heaven and a new earth.” 

Third : 

The thought of sequence or order —First 
he saw a new heaven, and then he saw a 
new earth. 

Fourth : 

The thought of destruction—The first 
heaven and the first earth were no more. 

Fifth : 

The thought of the end of mystery— 
“There was no more sea.” 


Briefly this morning, let us consider these five truths 
as related to the great truth of the resurrection. 

First: “I saw a new heaven.” The soul is dead that 
knows not vision. You say some people have imagina¬ 
tion and some have not. It is true that the imagination 
is somewhat a matter of degree. That is why in our 
schools and kindergartens to-day we are seeking to 
develop the imaginative in the child’s nature. There 
45 


46 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

was a time when imagination was left to later days and 
was not developed in our early school system. We 
can remember the days of the first, second and third 
readers, when the thought was commitment. The stu¬ 
dent must memorize. We can remember when our 
scholarship depended upon our ability to commit to 
memory. Some of us have never been blessed by re¬ 
markable memories, and perhaps are glad that times 
have changed and are emphasising the development of 
initiative, thus giving the imagination a chance. 

This great nation is more a nation of inventive 
genius than any other nation in the world. Every day 
there are new developments. If you had been told 
twenty-five years ago that you could pick up a tele¬ 
phone instrument and telephone by wireless, nobody 
would have believed you were sane, and still the things 
which are actually happening to-day in the experience 
of the hour are largely the result of a great inventive 
genius, which has always been related largely to the 
Anglo-Saxon race, although experienced by others. 

It is just so in the spiritual realm. This is the reason 
that some one invents a new religion every day, because 
the inventive genius goes out into thought and men¬ 
tality, as well as the adaptableness of the use of the 
hands. Here it may have harmful influence. There 
is a great danger because it may take us from the 
moorings of the soul; nevertheless, this spirit of seek¬ 
ing the new is a part of the great plan of God. 

A man without a vision is a man without a soul; 
his soul becomes stolid and petrified. We want to see 
the things beyond us; we love to close our eyes and 
behold, when the singing of a great hymn fills the 


NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 47 

Church of God, for the imagination has memories! 
We see scenes which we have never seen before. There 
is something we call a thrill that goes up the very spine, 
and a man feels a keen emotion of soul. It is the 
vision of the soul—the seeing into the past or into the 
beyond. There is a great craving to-day in the hearts 
of men to know the unseen world, or a longing of the 
soul to see those in the other world whom human eyes 
cannot see. And, unless we exercise great care, we 
will be drawn away into vague mysteries which are not 
hallowed, seeking to know the things which God has 
withheld from those who trust Him. 

We must be exceedingly careful that the vision of 
the soul does not go so far that we become visionary. 
We need the vision of the soul! The mystical has its 
place. What a wonderful hymn this is: 

“Jesus, these eyes have never seen 
That radiant form of Thine; 

The veil of sense hangs dark 

Between Thy blessed face and mine. 

“I see Thee not; I hear Thee not, 

Yet art Thou oft with me; 

And earth hath ne’er so dear a spot 
As where I meet with Thee. 

“Like some bright dream that comes unsought, 

When slumbers o’er me roll, 

Thine image ever fills my thought, 

And charms my ravished soul.” 

There is something in such vision of the soul which 
is most inspiring. We may not be mystics, but we 
need something of this vision of the unseen. 

When the little child closes her eyes at night as you 
turn out the light, you hear a little voice say: 


48 


PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 


“Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray the Lord my soul to keep. 

If I should die before I wake, 

I pray the Lord my soul to take.” 

Why was that little prayer the most popular prayer 
in the trenches? Some of those dear fellows did not 
realise what it was to pray, but “Now I lay me” was 
their prayer because it was associated with the endear¬ 
ments of the home and the loving touch of their child¬ 
hood. The vision returned. 

This is the vision of the soul we must see. Some¬ 
times parents thoughtlessly say to little children in the 
dark—“You will see things”—“The goblins will get 
you if you don’t watch out!” This is all wrong, for 
a child ought to have associated with the hours of dark¬ 
ness that which is inspiring and helpful that the child 
may gain that vision of the soul—“Now I lay me down 
to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” The 
Scripture says the angels of God watch over the little 
ones. 

Second: The Thought of Novelty. “I saw a new 
heaven and a new earth.” We need more than vision. 
He saw a new heaven and a new earth. We use the 
word “novelty” as related to some plaything for a 
child. We find in all the department stores a section 
or department of “novelties.” A novelty is something 
out of the ordinary. But the word novelty has here 
the thought of newness—a beginning, a new life, a 
new opportunity. The vision of the soul shows that 
which is new and which is priceless, because it has the 
beginning in it, the new chance. “Every day is a new 
beginning.” Every day begins a new effort. “A new 


NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 49 

heaven and a new earth,” and that newness means 
something we have not seen and found. Why God 
has greater things prepared for the believer than we 
have ever dreamed of! 

I had a dear friend who died many years ago. She 
said that always when she returned home from college 
she expected something new in her room in their home 
—sometimes a piano, or a new desk, or a new chair— 
something new, and she always anticipated it. As she 
was dying, she said: “Do you suppose my earthly 
father is better than my heavenly Father will be? I 
am dying, but ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 
have entered into the heart of man, the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love Him.’ I believe 
that the One who went to prepare a place for me has 
a new room; has something more beautiful than I have 
ever dreamed of for me.” 

Third: Now notice the sequence, our third thought. 
Notice the order—“A new heaven and a new earth/' 
Human beings put day before night. God always puts 
night before day. In the creation period you will find 
that the Scripture says: “And the evening and the 
morning were the first day,” not the morning and the 
evening—that is the way we begin. That is where the 
Cotter’s “Saturday Night” started; the night of prepa¬ 
ration, then the day of blessing. A natural sequence. 

The day goes wrong with many of us because the 
night is not started aright, and we do not live the 
night aright. How can you expect young men in mod¬ 
ern social life to become successful in business when 
that social life, in many instances, compels them to stay 
up until two or three o’clock in the morning, entertain- 


50 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

ing? The reform of society must begin with the night 
and not with the day. 

“I saw a new heaven and a new earth/' We can 
never have a “new earth” until we have a “new 
heaven.” The new heaven must precede. Christ said 
heaven begins here. There is no heaven there that has 
not begun here. You must see a new heaven before 
you can have a new earth. This is the trouble with 
reform. We think we can reform this world into 
righteousness. It can never be done, because sin means 
death. This resurrection truth is life. It is the raising 
from the dead. The night, the new heaven, must pre¬ 
cede the new earth. But, you say, you cannot see the 
heaven! Neither can you see the night, but out of the 
night dawns the great morn. 

Have you seen the sun rise in the distant East? 
Have you looked over the great lake and seen the sun 
rise as it comes up from the water? The grey light 
of dawn as it reveals something coming out of the 
darkness of the night, and then gradually the great 
orb bursts out on the horizon, blending the red, the 
salmon, the gold of the king of day, as he shows him¬ 
self ! The day has come, but it came out of the night. 

God wants us to have a new heaven in our hearts. 
We must go back to the original pattern. Christ said, 
“The kingdom of heaven is within you.” The new 
earth must come as a result of the new heaven. We 
must have a new vision of heaven. Heaven must be 
within before it can be without. A new earth follows 
this new heaven. 

Fourth: Now notice, “I saw a new heaven and a 


NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 51 

new earth, but the old heaven and the old earth were 
passed away.” 

When we come to destruction, we all feel as if we 
were iconoclasts, and say, no, keep the old things 
and let them remain in our hearts and lives. Have we 
ever realised this: that a continual holding to ourselves 
and keeping that which is dear to us and the past may 
rob us of the future? We can have such a clinging 
to our possessions that we destroy the possibilities and 
possessions of the future. 

You look into the face of your little child and say,< 
“I wish my child could always be young.” How lovely 
it is to see a little child rejoicing and glorying in this 
Easter Season! So happy over the Easter eggs that 
were placed at her plate at the breakfast table! Oh, 
( that we could always keep them as little children!” 
But no, they must grow and develop. What sadder 
sight than to see a child failing to grow and mature 
as the years pass! The joys of childhood deepen into 
the greater joys of full and complete life. We must 
“put away childish things.” “When I was a child I 
spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as 
a child: but when I became a man I put away childish 
things. For now we see through a glass darkly; but 
then face to face; now I know in part; but then shall 
I know even as also I am known.” 

If we cling continually to the old and to all the 
traditions and associations of it, we will simply destroy 
the new, for the old must pass away to make place 
for the new. 

I read from one of our great Englishmen this last 
week, an essay in which he said to the youth of Eng- 


52 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

land, “Young men, live in all the thrill of your out¬ 
door competition; let the spirit of the cricket field mean 
all to’you that it may and has to the youth of England, 
but remember you are facing a life service where there 
will be need of all you can gain on that athletic field of 
determination, strength and reliance! and remember 
that ‘life is real and life is earnest,’ ” quoting those 
wonderful words of our own Longfellow: 

“Life is real, life is earnest. 

And the grave is not its goal. 

Dust thou art, to dust returneth 
Was not spoken of the soul. 

“Lives of great men all remind us. 

We can make our lives sublime. 

And departing, leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of time.” 

The new heaven must be in the soul if the new earth 
is to come among men. Jesus Christ represented that 
new heaven when He said, “The Kingdom of Heaven 
is in your midst.” 

Fifth and lastly: Mystery ends when vision becomes 
sight. “And there was no more sea.” 

The great ocean means mystery. Napoleon standing 
on the deck of the vessel during his last sea voyage 
said, “No man is great. This is vastness.” Oh, that 
he had learned the lesson earlier. 

The sea tells the story of mystery and majesty. Its 
vastness includes its very mystery. Hundreds of thou¬ 
sands of unknown dead it might give up. Its far- 
reaching shores lap the untrodden Arctic and Antarc¬ 
tic. Its bosom receives the waters of myriad rivers 
whose mouths are seldom seen by man. Its unfathomed 


NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 53 

depths contain life unknown to biologist or student. 
Its streams and currents still mystify the mariner and 
necessitate new maps and charts. But, in the day of 
the new heaven and the new earth there shall be no 
more sea. “Now we know in part, but then shall we 
know even as also we are known.” “Now abideth faith, 
hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is 
love.” “And God so loved the world that He gave 
His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on 
Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” 

Yes, in the day of that new heaven and new earth 
mystery will be gone, even as the stone was rolled 
away from the sepulchre. The Lord of light had arisen 
from the dead. This was not even as it was at the 
grave of Lazarus, for here the stone must be rolled 
away to let him forth, but the Saviour was gone. The 
tomb had lost its victory, for He had risen. 

All is new. There is no more sea. There is no 
longer the mystery, for faith hath become sight. “And 
I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first 
heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there 
was no more sea.” In that new heaven and new earth 
there dwelleth righteousness. 

This is the vision and message of the Easter Day. 


V 


BALAAM AND GOD’S WILL 

“And Balaam the son of Beor they slew with the 
sword.”— Numbers 31:8. 

Was the death of Balaam such an important bit of 
history? Why single him out with the five kings of 
Midian ? Who was this heathen prophet, and why was 
he so cruelly slain? Are not his prophecies among 
the most marvellous and accurate in history? Did not 
God Himself talk with this man face to face? Did not 
Balaam bless Israel, God’s chosen people, with fearless 
utterance before Balak their enemy? Let us recall the 
whole story:— 

The children of Israel had spent nearly forty years 
wandering in the wilderness. They had reached the 
borders of the Promised Land. The powerful Amor^ 
ites alone stood before them and the Jordan. Per¬ 
mission to advance was refused by Sihon, the strong, 
progressive king. Israel fought, and Sihon and his 
hosts were slain. Northward they march. Og, the 
giant king of Bashan, also is conquered; and victorious 
Israel, under the matchless Moses, encamps in the 
fertile valleys of Moab, just east of Jericho. Balak, 
the king of Moab, now fears for his people. If Sihon 
and Og could avail nothing, military strength and 
genius are insufficient. Divine aid must be sought. He 
54 


BALAAM AND GOD’S WILL 55 

consults with the wise men of Midian, an adjacent 
country on the east. 

Four hundred miles away, at Pethor, over the moun¬ 
tains, on the great river Euphrates, lives a mighty 
soothsayer and magician. His fame is universal. 
Rumor has it that even the Egyptian king once sent to 
consult him. The people whom he blesses are blessed, 
those whom he curses are cursed. 

The elders from Balak, laden with the “rewards of 
divination,” appear at the home of the prophet. Their 
message is simple. “A great people has journeyed to 
our land from Egypt. They are mighty warriors; the 
•natives of the desert have been overcome; the powerful 
Amorites Tiave been annihilated. They eat up our land 
‘as the ox licketh up the grass of the field.’ Balaam, 
thou gifted one of the most high God, behold these 
countless gifts from Balak our king. ‘Come now, 
therefore, we pray thee, and curse this people, for they 
are too mighty for us: that we may smite them and 
drive them out of the land .’ 99 

The prophet consults God, as the elders lodge with 
him. He refuses to go for God says: “‘Thou shalt 
not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for 
they are blessed.” 

Returning from their king a second time with princes 
more honourable and rewards even greater, again they 
plead with him to accompany them. King Balak “will 
promote thee unto every great honour,” and “will do 
whatsoever thou sayest unto him.” Again they tarry 
as Balaam consults God. Consent is given to his wish. 
He goes with them. “God’s anger” is “kindled.” The 
“angel of the Lord” blocks the way. His faithful beast 


56 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

reproves him for his cruel madness. His eyes are 
opened. The sword of an injured God flashes before 
him, and the Divine voice speaks, “Thy way is perverse 
before me.” 

The prophet is met by Balak on the very border 
of his kingdom, and oxen and sheep are offered in 
sacrifices. The following day they climb the heights 
of Baal and look off upon Israel. At Balaam's com¬ 
mand, seven altars are built, and seven oxen and rams 
slain. As Balak stands by the offering, Balaam sees 
God. He returns, and, instead of cursing, blesses. 
“How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed? . . . 
Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last 
end be like his." Bewildered, Balak leads him to 
Mount Pisgah; again the altars and sacrifices, and 
Balaam's meeting with God alone. A second time he 
stands among the princes of Moab, and says: “Behold 
I have received commandment to bless: and he hath 
blessed, and I cannot reverse it. God brought them 
out of Egypt. . . . They have the strength of the wild 
bull. . . . They shall rise up as a great lion . . . and 
drink the blood of the slain."' 

Irritated, the persistent king leads the prophet to a 
third eminence, the top of lofty Peor. Yet again, the 
sacrifices, and again Balaam, looking off over the 
myriad tents of Israel, speaks as the Spirit of God 
comes upon him: “How goodly are thy tents, O 
Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!" (Do you see 
the face of Balak as it darkens and wrinkles under the 
prophet’s words?) “He shall eat up the nations his 
enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them 
through with his arrows. . . . Blessed is he that bless- 


BALAAM AND GOD’S WILL 57 

eth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee!” Angered 
now, Balak turns upon the prophet, and, withholding 
the promotion to honour, bids him flee. Ere he leaves, 
Balaam recalls to the mind of Balak the words he had 
primarily spoken, declaring that he could not go beyond 
the words of God, even if Balak should give him “his 
house full of silver and gold.” Then he adds that far- 
reaching and remarkable prophecy of western advance, 
culminating in the “Star out of Jacob.” 

But Balaam did not go back to the banks of the 
Euphrates. Sojourning in Midian, he accomplished 
through the subtlety of idolatry and sin the curse which 
he dared not pronounce with his lips. He taught the 
daughters of Midian to entice the sons of Israel in the 
false and immoral worship of Baal-Peor. 

The curse fell. The tents of Jacob on the banks of 
the Jordan became infested with all the horrors of the 
plague. Twenty-four thousand died. The swift and 
awful javelin of chaste Phinehas appeased God, and 
stayed the curse; but God’s just vengeance followed the 
Midianites. A thousand chosen men from every tribe, 
with Phinehas the warrior-priest, were sent forth, and 
slew the idolaters. Five kings of Midian fell, and 
“Balaam also, the son of Beor, they slew with the 
sword,” for as Moses tells us later, “these caused the 
children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to 
commit trespass against the Lord.” 

Balaam was a strange mixture of good and evil. 
His life is a study worth our while. One moment we 
are won by his apparent reverence and fidelity, and the 
next we are repelled by his detestable subtlety and 
avarice. 


58 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

Human life is duplex in its nature, but every man 
has a controlling character. He is either self-willed, 
or self is lovingly lost in the will of another. Man 
is either selfish or unselfish. Life is either right or 
wrong. The history of Balaam is sufficient to place 
him without a doubt beside Cain, Haman, Simon the 
sorcerer, and Judas. He was a bad man as far as 
we have a right to judge. Why, then, study his char¬ 
acter ? Why not sigh and turn the page ? Why ? Be¬ 
cause this Balaam is a great type of what is too often 
called Christian life. 

First: He was controlled by avarice, *“he loved the 
wages of unrighteousness/’ The rewards of divina¬ 
tion in the hands of these elders of Midian, fanned the 
flame that consumed his life. He was a professional 
religionist, blessing and cursing for money. He made 
holy things a commodity of trade. He sold the things 
of God. He cared more for the “rewards of divina¬ 
tion” than for Divinity. 

The journeying elders were of little consequence to 
him; Moab and Midian were at best but defeated tribes, 
driven back previously by Sihon the slain Amorite. 
But the messengers had rewards. “The love of 
money” was his “root of all evil.” Before they spoke, 
the intelligent and gifted prophet must have anticipated 
their errand. Had not the victories of these former 
Goshenites reached his ears? Rumour must certainly 
have informed him of their power. If even the power¬ 
ful Amorites could not conquer them; if Sihon and 
Og had failed, why should Balak or the Midianites 
hope to arrest their course ? Did he not know that the 
God of Israel, who walled up the Red Sea, and swal- 


59 


BALAAM AND GOD’S WILL 

lowed Pharaoh’s mighty host, was the Almighty and 
the Eternal One? As they deliver their message, why 
does he hesitate? “Curse Israel?” Curse the children 
of the Almighty? His own firm manner should have 
silenced and chagrined them. No obligation to the 
western tribes bound him. He had nothing to gain 
from their favour. His fearless, frank testimony as 
to Israel would have established the hopelessness of 
their request. . . . But the prophet of the Euphrates 
is two-faced. With one face he looks at God, with 
the other he sees gold. He will “talk with God,” and 
explain matters to God. Perhaps God will let him 
go. What folly! Here we see the grasping coward 
pretend to consecrate sinful desire under the name of 
religion, and having dallied with temptation, seek to 
excuse himself. Should he not be hospitable to these 
guests? Ought he not to consider this invitation 
thoughtfully? Having yielded, subtle reason tempts 
him further. Perhaps a deceiver has scattered these 
rumours as to Israel; exaggeration may have enlarged 
the truth. All this with one face toward God, while 
that other inner face watched the “rewards of divina¬ 
tion.” If temptation once gains a foothold, imme¬ 
diately it works to establish itself. So now he reasons 
still further with himself: “Why should I not receive 
these rewards if I can possibly arrange to get them 
without openly opposing God’s will? Balak will see 
that my desire is to please him, even if I am limited.” 

Now avarice is doing its most deadly work. It is 
transforming the will, the desire. The power of 
prophecy, of divination, has become simply a means to 
an end, that end being the gain which the man himself 


60 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

craves. Balaam’s desire was not to do God’s will, but 
to appear to do God’s will that he might get the world’s 
reward and favour. As he journeys, God’s rebuke 
from his faithful beast, so cruelly treated, does not turn 
him back. The love of gold is an ever-increasing love 
which transforms freedom into slavery. It chains the 
soul, and saddest of all, it deafens the ears and blinds 
the eyes, so that its victim neither sees the links nor 
hears the clanking of the chains that bind him. God 
seemed to free Balaam. He would not let him curse 
Israel; He shielded him. But, alas, the man was de¬ 
ceived. The tempter controlled: and, although he 
would not defy God openly, although he even gloried 
outwardly in His blessing, he gained his secret craving 
for worldly reward through cunning deception and 
sinful intrigue. 

As prophet and king looked down from those moun¬ 
tain peaks of Moab, 

“In outline dim and vast, 

Their fearful' shadows cast 

The giant forms of empires on their way 

To ruin: one by one 

They tow’r and they are gone. 

Yet in the prophet’s soul the dreams of avarice 
stay.” 

Second: Balaam trifled with truth. Appearing and 
professing to reverence holy things, he simply used 
them for his own ends. To do this, he assumed to be 
genuine. He was not sincere; he used truth to falsify 
his position; he was the “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” the 
prophet’s garb covering a life of sinful desire. His 
holy utterances were mechanical and professional. His 
face bore the seraphic smile of light; his heart dwelt 


61 


BALAAM AND GOD’S WILL 

in darkness. Truth fled from him as he yielded to 
the tempter, and he was forced to draw over his guilt 
a false covering. Having substituted the form for 
the reality, he did not hesitate to take in vain God’s 
name and message. His soul had ceased to struggle 
with temptation, and even prayer and conversation with 
God was simply an effort to persuade God to his will. 

We read in Deuteronomy and Joshua that “God 
would not hearken unto Balaam.” He had trifled with 
truth, and now he was trifling with the God of truth. 
The truth-trifler soon learns to care more for the 
approval of man than for the peace of God. Not what 
God saw, but what man witnessed, was of interest to 
him. Truth he would speak, even accurately and 
fearlessly, but his prophetic office and power demanded 
this, and protected him from bodily harm. This veri¬ 
fied the genuineness of his character outwardly, and 
seemed to his clouded vision to appease the wrath of 
his God for the falsity of his motive. In another way 
he would silently and cunningly accomplish his end, the 
wink of understanding with Balak would insure the 
reward. Truth enthroned in his presence was really 
“on the scaffold,” and, if the “Great Avenger” seemed 
careless, our text shows that He stood “within the 
shadow,” for “they slew Balaam, the son of Beor, with 
the sword.” Why did he build those altars? Why did 
he sacrifice the oxen and sheep ? Why did he depart to 
talk with the Almighty ? Did he not know God’s will ? 
Was it not that he was seeking to compromise with 
God, that through his outward devotion to the formal 
he might gain his point ? As the smoke rose from his 
altai o of sacrifice, would not God accept it as an odour 


62 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

of a sweet smell, and thus translate truth to please the 

prophet ? 

Micah answers (referring to Balaam) : “Wherewith 
shall I come before the Lord? and bow myself before 
the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt 
offerings? . . . Will the Lord be pleased with thou¬ 
sands of rams? . . . Shall I give my first-born for my 
transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my 
soul? . , Shall I under the false light of a formal 
sacrifice think to transform wrong into right; to change 
error into truth? No, thou trifler. Thy sacrifices shall 
not avail; thy life is false. Thy religion suggests a 
whited sepulchre. Thou canst not, as says Stanley, 
“over-power the voice of conscience with the forms of 
sacrifice.” . . , “He hath showed thee, O man, what 
is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but 
to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly 
with thy God.” 

Third: Balaam substituted knowledge for love. He 
knew God, but he did not love God. He talked with 
God, but in that conversation the lips spoke, and the 
ears heard, but the heart was silent. He met God with 
eye and mind, but the heart did not respond. He did 
not really see God for he was not “pure in heart.” 

Balaam's knowledge was his power. His fame was 
the child of his wisdom. The mystical on his lips was 
the offspring of his larger vision. His shrewd insight 
and farsightedness resulted from rare personal gifts 
and a trained and thoughtful mind. Able scholarship 
added to his influence, while his religious professions 
commanded reverence. 

To know has always seemed to be religion to the 


BALAAM AND GOD’S WILL 63 

ignorant and superstitious, but knowledge without love 
lives but to die. This man knew, but his knowledge 
did not save him when the sword of the truth-loving 
Phinehas swept Midian. Knowledge itself cannot save. 
“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you 
free,” not the knowledge of the truth. God is Truth. 
Christ said, “I am the Life, the Truth and the Way.” 1 
“In Him” (the Truth) “was the love of God per¬ 
fected.” 

Cain knew God and talked with Him. Judas was 
one of those who spent months of time with Jesus 
Christ. But neither Cain nor Judas loved. Balaam 
knew God, but Balaam failed to love God. He loved 
not knowledge; he loved not divination, but he loved 
their rewards. Self-love ruled and walked hand in 
hand with knowledge. Thus unfolds another lesson., 
Knowledge without love enshrines reason and banishes 
faith. The unseen gives way before the seen. The 
unknown then mothers unbelief. No life of faith 
could have spoken those holy words of prophecy, and 
still failed to believe in the loving care and fatherhood 
of God, as seen in His care for Israel. Knowledge had 
reasoned away faith, because love was not there. Love 
only can bid knowledge clasp hands with faith, for 
“love believeth all things . . . love never faileth,” but 
“prophecies shall fail, tongues shall cease, knowledge 
shall vanish away.” How Balaam’s knowledge van¬ 
ished and was quickly forgotten! Popular reference 
to-day scarcely mentions him aside from his faithful 
dumb beast, which was not dumb. His knowledge did 
not save him when Israel was avenged for Midian’s 


64 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

sin. Knowledge void of love has never saved man. 
It never can. 

To know what is right, is not to do what is right. 
Simply to know God is not enough, for this man talked 
with Him face to face. And yet, the religion of knowl¬ 
edge, with its creed of rationalism, is dangerously near 
the civilisation of the day in which we live. But, re¬ 
member Balaam’s error, and “though we speak with 
the tongues of men and of angels, . . . though we have 
the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and 
all knowledge, . . . and have not love ... we are 
nothing.” 

Fourth: Balaam’s saddest error was that he de¬ 
ceived his own soul. He tried to think he was favoured 
of God. He reasoned that God’s temporary presence 
insured His eternal presence. He had so long trusted 
in his forms of worship, that they had become his wor¬ 
ship. He worshipped the image, and thought the image 
was God. He is the father of formalism and external- 
ism, for they both grow from a self-deceived conception 
of pure religion. 

It is the sad picture of the Pharisee, thanking God 
that he is “not as other men are, or even as this publi¬ 
can.” He, too, seeks a reward, as he makes long 
prayers on the street corners, and “verily,” says Christ, 
“he has his reward.” The awful punishment of hypoc¬ 
risy is hypocrisy. The hypocrite grows to be self- 
deceived. 

But was Balaam a hypocrite? Was he not a moral 
man? Did he not live up to a high standard of ethics? 
[Was he not a follower of God’s own voice? Was he 
not strict in obedience? Did he not fearlessly speak 


65 


BALAAM AND GOD’S WILL 

the words of God, even when that brought the disfavor 
of the king? Was he not gifted, and honourable and 
trustworthy? Yes, and this is where he was self- 
deceived. Outwardly he was God’s; inwardly he be¬ 
longed absolutely to self. He convinced himself that 
duty lay in the path he chose, rather than in God’s path. 
He led duty, duty did not lead him. (I wonder 
how many of us are like him in this single particu¬ 
lar.) His prayer was a seeking to convince God of 
the possible error of right, and so gain Divine permis¬ 
sion to call wrong right. His desire was not to do 
God's will, but to keep on safe terms with Him. His 
own will, although clothed in religion, and acting in 
righteous deeds, was his uncontrolled absolute monarch. 
His will ruled in life; that will fell in death, but fell 
in a self-deceived soul. 

“He that hath an ear, let him hear.” Are we self- 
deceived? “No,” we reply, “I know my Lord. I 
pray regularly and fervently, doing good as I have 
opportunity. I live a respectable, merciful, upright 
life.” Listen, Christ is speaking—not threateningly, 
but in that calm voice of authority and truth—“Not 
every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter 
into the kingdom of heaven. . . . Many will say unto 
me in that day, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy 
name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name 
done many wonderful works? And then will I pro¬ 
fess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me ye 
that work iniquity.” “Iniquity? Wherein have we 
sinned? We are members of Thy church; we have 
been trained in Christian homes; we are respectable 
citizens in a God-fearing land. Wherein have we 


66 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

done iniquity?” Let Balaam reply. God slew him 
because he did his own will instead of God’s will, and 
even in so doing, deceived his own soul, convincing 
himself that he did the will of God. Complete that 
thought of Christ, already quoted—“Not he that saith 
unto me, Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the will of my 
Father,” 


VI 


UNITING WITH THE CHURCH 

A PLEA FOR REVIVAL 

“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.”— Psalm 107:2. 

Our subject is Confessing Christ or Membership in 
His Church. Naturally, we think of those who are 
holding back, who are generally spoken of as “without 
the fold.” We would change this method to-day, and 
realising what God has done, present with His power 
the joy and blessing of confession, and its relation to 
a revival of His Spirit. 

Church membership is not a condition of salvation* 
but confessing Christ is, for the true believer must con¬ 
fess. The Master Himself said, “Whosoever therefore 
shall confess me before men, him will I also confess 
before my Father which is in heaven.” Paul also added 
in his Roman letter, “If thou shalt confess with thy 
mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart 
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be 
saved. For with the heart man believeth unto right¬ 
eousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto 
salvation.” 

There is a difference between confessing Christ and 
uniting with the Church, but not a distinction in the 
every-day usage of the terms. Many believers, no 
6 7 


68 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

doubt, are not in the visible Church, just as many in 
the Church are evidently unbelievers. We read ‘‘Judge 
not,” but we also read “By their fruits ye shall know 
them.” This inconsistency is the excuse of many who 
do not profess. If sincere, it is due to a misunder¬ 
standing of the meaning and place of the Lord’s Sup¬ 
per ! As we do not come to the Table upon any merit 
of our own, neither have we the right to stay away 
through the lack of merit of others. “As oft as ye eat 
this bread and drink this cup ye do show the Lord’s 
death till He come.” There is nothing said as to our 
lives or the lives of others, for the only life we then 
honor is His life, and that the life through His death. 
Argument will not lead men to open confession of 
Christ. Force fails as it inevitably does with matters 
of the heart. Appeal usually proves vain because of 
unwillingness. 

The question primarily depends upon the thought of 
redemption, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” 
If you are redeemed, speak out, say so. A self-satisfied 
life, self-justifiable, complacent, heeds not, nor have we 
the right to expect. The Master is patient, but He does 
not spend time with the soul when in that state. He is 
the Saviour, the Great Physician, seeking the suffer¬ 
ing, the needy, the lost. The unheeding who really 
need Him most of all, He loves, but He will not force 
an entrance into their hearts. “Behold, I stand at the 
door and knock; if any man hear and open I will come 
in.” But the door must be opened to the Saviour. Sin 
must be confessed, “For all have sinned.” “There is 
none righteous, no not one.” The voice must be that 
of the suppliant, “God be merciful to me, a sinner ” 


UNITING WITH THE CHURCH 69 

Then the reasonable, loving Redeemer replies, “Though 
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” 
“Fear not, I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by 
name, thou art mine.” The redeemed one, our text 
affirms, should speak out his redemption, “let the re¬ 
deemed of the Lord say so.” (Our thoughts should 
quicken all of us who now confess Him to awake out 
of sleep and realise that every day and every moment 
are times of emergency and responsibility. Times to 
“let our lips and lives express the Holy Gospel we 
profess.”) 

If then you love Jesus Christ; if you believe Him 
to be your Saviour; if you have quietly accepted the 
standard of His life and seek to live that life in His 
Divine strength, believing that He has redeemed you 
on the cross, why not say so? The joy, the comfort, 
the blessing of this open, frank, inspiring testimony 
will interpret life anew to you, and perhaps through 
you to others. 

The Word of God is filled with illustration and expe¬ 
rience of the joy and continued blessing of open and 
willing confession of religious faith. History records 
the fact all along that moral strength, noble character, 
and righteous leadership have been strong in those of 
avowed religious confession and belief. Perhaps in 
our desire to win the world, we have erred in urging 
this step too zealously, instead of telling His wonderful 
Gospel and waiting for His Spirit to prompt the open 
act of confession. 

Confessing Christ will give you the joy of freedom 
from the power of sin. Your very weakness will show 
His power. You will also cease viewing the sins of 


70 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

the Church, for your eyes will no longer seek the sins 
of others that you may justify self by comparison. 

The avowal of our own sinful nature saved by 
Christ’s sacrifice fixes our vision upon Him rather 
than upon the inconsistencies of others. Then it is that 
we put ourselves in the attitude to others to see many 
of the good qualities we otherwise would overlook. 
Consciousness of neglected duty subtly makes us detec¬ 
tives, ever on the spy for the failings of others. See 
before you every day a Redeemer, pure, ideal, and 
then in God’s open fields among the flowers of sun¬ 
light and the ferns of shade, you will not look for 
briers and thistles. Openly His, you will become an 
appreciator of good instead of a critic of error. 

The great good things of His Church will begin 
to appeal to you. History will point out the godly 
patriarchs, and the holy fathers following on after 
the chosen twelve whom He so loved. The martyr’s 
cross and stake will be o’er topped with a halo instead 
of underlit with the wicked torch. The Bible will 
become your daily food, the much-sought food of the 
soul, instead of a book from which to search out all 
possible human difficulty. The service of God’s house 
will be reverential and worshipful because the heart is 
right with Him. It will no longer be a place which 
you attend, but a joyful devotion of which you are 
a part. The hymns will be the expression of your heart 
in devout praise; the scripture lesson nourishment for 
your inner life, that which the quiet hours of the Sab¬ 
bath will afford time to meditate and assimilate. The 
prayer will be the voice of the human soul lifted to God 
in heartfelt adoration and praise, and the petition will 


UNITING WITH THE CHURCH 71 

have a living faith that gives assurance. Why this 
change? Have you not habitually attended Church? 
Yes, but now you do not attend, you constitute the 
Church. The Church is not the building, but the peo¬ 
ple. You are no longer within the Church. You are 
the Church, and Jesus Christ is yours. Can you con¬ 
ceive of a bride happy and content who is ashamed 
to be known as the wife of her husband? Will a bride, 
even if she is not ashamed of that bridegroom, separate 
herself from him in the presence of others habitually? 
The Church is the Bride of Christ. 

The Joy of Opportunity will also be yours. Every¬ 
where you will be pointed out as a Christian. You will 
be expected to do other than the worlding, and your 
conduct will command respect and appreciation even if 
temporarily there may sometimes be embarrassment. 
In times of characterless wavering you will be strong, 
and your courage will be the stay of many a weaker 
life. When others fall, you will be expected to take 
their part to lead them to sure ground. When the 
world is cross and scolds, and calls sorrow hard-luck, 
and accident cruelty, your face will bear a smile of 
confidence and peace, and your conversation will have 
no bitter word nor hasty judgment. As a living letter, 
read and known of all men, you will call forth answers 
which will lead to correspondence without limit. 

What wonderful opportunity to plead personally and 
testify for the Master! What an opportunity will also 
be yours in God’s house with eye ever open, and ear 
ever alert for those who need Christ and have not found 
Him. Interested and aroused there, you, as a member 
of the Church, as one of Christ’s ambassadors, can seek 


72 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

out that one and point Him to the Saviour, and direct 
him to the minister through your personal introduction. 
The opportunity afforded in the life of every day is 
largely increased by the public confession of Christ. 
You are not only known as a business man, a profes¬ 
sional man, but as a Christian business or professional 
man. The two do not become identical in the natural 
classification of men. If you live consistently you will 
be the center of interest among men who do not love 
Christ, as one who loves and honours Him, and your 
influence will be larger than you yourself will realise. 
The opportunity of association with Christian institu¬ 
tions will increase, each multiplying usefulness, none 
more influential than those directly connected with the 
Church appointments. The Christian business man in 
the prayer meeting, or in the Sunday School can do 
an immense amount for the development of the youth 
of the Church. 

With this joy of opportunity will be the joy of 
responsibility, and who is the man who will not glory 
in increased responsibility. The responsibility will be 
felt more in the home than anywhere else, and here 
it should be felt. The father or mother who is an 
open confessor of Christ at home is seldom outside the 
membership of the Church, nor should he .be. “Go 
home to thy friends and tell them how great things 
Christ hath done for thee,” was His command. An¬ 
drew, after hearing Jesus speak, first found his own 
brother Simon and confessed “We have found the 
Messias.” Peter the Rock! Peter the mighty preacher 
was the result. 

How slight seems the daily opportunity of honoring 


UNITING WITH THE CHURCH 73 
Christ in the home, but this may mean the conversion 
and marvellous power of one in that home. Thought¬ 
lessly a father says, “My children do not stop to think 
whether I am a member of the Church or not.” We 
will wave the argument, but we reply the inspirational 
word, “What an opportunity you have and what a 
grand responsibility of compelling the admiration of 
those very children by a life of consistent, joyful, 
Christian fidelity.’* In a few short years they will no 
longer be little children, and as they begin to find their 
duties, their pleasures, their companions outside of the 
home, your moulding influence will then be gone. 

This joy of responsibility is also the teacher’s privi¬ 
lege. Many of our greatest and best men have testified 
that the character and training of a Christian teacher 
gave them life’s real meaning and religious purpose. 
There is not a vocation or service in the world in which 
the joy of responsibility may not be felt if the redeemed 
of the Lord would only say so. 

The blessing of such utterance for Him can never 
be known on earth. Jesus Christ confessed publicly 
may call forth the criticism and cynicism of a few, 
but these expressions count for little and are soon for¬ 
gotten. Generally they bespeak the self-excusing life, 
or the life of worldly or social aspiration. The deep 
heart of man rejoices in the courage and conviction of 
the believer. An infidel sat in the rear of a great 
church as a large body of men and women were taken 
into the church, many of them being baptised. Not a 
word he uttered, but after the solemnity of the service, 
as the throng passed out into the street, he said sadly 


74 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

to a friend: “Would to God I had been there, for such 

scenes make me think there is a God.” 

The ever present blessing of a clear conscience 
accompanies such confession. We fall, we sin, we 
err, but we are redeemed, and that means forgiven, 
and we are His, not our own. “We are bought with 
a price.” That price is paid. “Who in His own self 
bare our sins in His own body on the tree.” We are 
“dead to sin that we may live unto righteousness.” 

Will you not deliberately, calmly, and seriously ask 
yourself these questions: “Why have I not united 
with the Church of Christ?” “Why have I not openly 
confessed Jesus Christ as my Saviour?” Will you not 
pray that God’s Holy Spirit may to-day make you will¬ 
ing to do this thing? 

But stronger still is the argument of present fact. 
We have been hearing that there could never again 
be a great revival *of religion. We have heard that 
the Church had become too intellectual for that; that 
emotionalism’s day has passed; that God would come 
in some other way. As proof we have cited the splen¬ 
did equipment and efforts which have of late appar¬ 
ently failed, time and again, in so-called revival cam¬ 
paigns. We have all of us denounced many hackneyed 
methods of forcing decision upon men. Our tastes 
have controlled our estimate of others, as well as God’s, 
ways and means. But how was it on the day of Pente¬ 
cost? What did men say about the disciples then? 
Did the disciples heed those words? What became 
of the cynics? What did that revival mean to Chris¬ 
tianity? What has grown out of it? Are we realising 


UNITING WITH THE CHURCH 75 

just now that when God works He works His way, not 
ours? 

Is there not a need, an astounding need, of a genuine 
revival of religion? Do you not feel it? I do. The 
Church of God does. The world does. 

Years ago %vhen a great revival swept through 
Wales, it was said: ‘‘The present Welsh revival seems 
to be the outcome of the mighty workings of the Spirit 
of God. It has some of the characteristics of the 
first Pentecost. There is a strength, a buoyancy, a 
sanity about it that indicates a divine origin. It moves 
forward with but little machinery. It is independent 
of committees. The people themselves become evange¬ 
listic workers. It is a modern comment upon Paul’s 
words: ‘The Kingdom of God is not in word, but in 
power/ ” 

Again, an editorial commented: “The direct effects 
attributed to this marvellous movement, as the reports 
come in from all the district which has taken fire, indi¬ 
cate a stupendous total of moral effect. Every com¬ 
munity in South Wales has felt the uplift, and all 
grades of society have been helped. The miners are 
almost transformed as a class. It is counted the most 
amazing effect of the work that swearing is no longer 
heard in the mines. Prayer meetings are held at the 
bottom of the shafts. Similar changes are seen in the 
tin mills. The saloons are almost deserted; theatres 
have lost patronage amazingly. The football season 
has been an utter failure; people went to the meetings 
instead of to the games. Among educated Welshmen 
agnostic ethical societies had of recent years come into 
great vogue; now they are generally disbanding. Sec- 


76 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

tarianism has been rife in Wales, but now mutual 
suspicions are superseded by the most absolute spiritual 
unity. The rectors of the Church of England are 
among the most enthusiastic promoters of the revival 
meetings. ,, 

When Mr. Moody lived in our city years ago, and 
God’s fire of revival so frequently swept sin away, 
some even of our leading preachers said, “It will 
amount to nothing.” They would not see. Do not let 
formal habit or indifference blind you. Believe! Pray! 

Christians, will you consider Jesus Christ your Mas¬ 
ter as the Master and Pre-eminent Leader of your 
whole life from this hour ? Will you pray to-day with¬ 
out holding back any worldly desire, and will you con¬ 
fess Him? If so, God will fulfill His promises. (May 
I ask every head to be bowed, and each heart to weigh 
these words as I read them) : 

“Ye have not because ye ask not.’ , 

“For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our 
Saviour, who will have all men to be saved and to come unto 
the knowledge of the truth.” 

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will 
pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh.” 

“And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name that will I do, 
that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” 

“Wilt Thou not revive us again, that Thy people may 
rejoice in Thee?” 

“Revive Thy work in the midst of the years—in wrath 
remember mercy.” 

“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” 


VII 


THE THOUGHTS OF GOD 

“How precious are Thy thoughts unto me, O God; 
how great is the sum of them. If I should count 
them, they are more in number than the sand; when 
I awake I am still with Thee.”— Psalm 139:17, 18. 

A man’s thoughts govern him. Wise then is he who 
controls his thought. Well may we join in the prayer 
of David as he closes this psalm, “Search me, O God, 
and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts.’’ 

“As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” The 
thoughts show the real self. One of our English essay¬ 
ists has well said: “Observe what direction your 
thoughts and feelings most readily take when you are 
alone, and you will then form a tolerably correct opin¬ 
ion of your real self.” 

It is unquestionably true that the great majority of 
people in our day do little or no thinking beyond that 
which the momentary environment suggests. Even our 
educated men and women are inclined to think along 
the line which the business or profession of each day 
controls. Unless care is taken, our thinking becomes 
exceedingly narrow and limited. No better illustration 
of this is found than in the popular modern magazine. 
Here we find that quick illustration, suggestive and 
realistic, rather than finished and artistic, takes the 
place of that which was once demanded in literary 
77 


78 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

egression and correct style. Our newspapers plainly 
evidence the demand of the public for quick utterance 
and hasty reading. Men are too busy to do much 
thinking aside from that which they can turn into 
dollars and cents. The public seems to require other 
minds to think for it. Periodicals which condense 
and select for us are salable. Men want to see at a 
glance; to read as they run; to understand without the 
pressure of heavy thought. The movies are popular 
because they give us a novel in an hour and a half. 

Our colleges, although equipped as never before with 
professors and instructors, specialists in distinctive 
lines, are lessening somewhat the tension and demand 
in those lines of study which count for discipline and 
mental training. The word practical has grown to have 
an immediate signification. 

To-day, as never before, public utterance must not 
call upon men to think too long or too deeply, even in 
cities of highest scholastic name. Lectures are seldom 
popular which treat upon deep or philosophical subjects. 
There are exceptions, especially where the lecturer is 
famous, but the large audience, we fear, is often even 
then a result of the popular desire to be considered phil¬ 
osophical, and if the lecturer should happen, by chance, 
to take his eyes from his manuscript, he would undoubt¬ 
edly be shocked to see many a nodding head. 

Our theme this morning is “The Thoughts of God.” 
They were precious to David; they have been precious 
to countless men. We read in the tenth Psalm that 
“God is not in all the thoughts of the wicked.” These 
words this morning, then, cannot appeal to the man 
whose life is sinful wilfully and untrue selfishly. The 


THE THOUGHTS OF GOD 79 

wrongdoer purposely leaves God out of his thoughts. 
Generally the wicked man does not think much, anyway. 
As Neander wrote: 

His soul like bark with rudder lost, 

On passion’s changeful tide was tossed; 

Nor vice nor virtue had the power 
Beyond the impression of the hour; 

And, oh! when passion rules, how rare 
The hours which fall to virtue’s share. 

We read in Genesis of those days of ancient Noah, 
that “every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart 
was only evil continually, and God repented that he had 
made man.” 

If, however, we desire to seek God, He will be found. 
Isaiah says, “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, 
call ye upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked 
forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, 
and let him return unto the Lord and he will have 
mercy upon him, and to our God for He will abundantly 
pardon.” He continues: “For my thoughts are not 
your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, saith 
the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, 
so are my ways higher than your ways, and my 
thoughts than your thoughts.” 

If then we are honest and desire to fix our minds 
upon God, His thoughts will become dear to us. 

First: We should consider that God, the Holy Spirit, 
the Third Person of the Trinity, has a definite pre¬ 
scribed mission to perform in calling to our remem¬ 
brance the things which pertain to Jesus Christ. “The 
Comforter,” Christ says, “shall teach you all things, 
and call to your remembrance whatsoever I have said 
unto you.” 


80 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

Our memories are treacherous; we cannot always 
depend upon them, but much of our thinking depends 
upon that which we remember. Christian character de¬ 
pends upon Christian thinking. If God Himself, as 
the Holy Spirit, controls our memory, He must control 
also our thinking. Thus, the Christian actually has 
“the mind of Christ.” The Comforter helps us remem¬ 
ber those things which will comfort in times of sorrow; 
also that which will stimulate to greater activity, when 
the human soul is indifferent. He suggests the tactful 
word at the right time. He uses our mind according 
to our best mental development, by exercising His will 
over us and suggesting our lines of action. Man does 
not act until he wills to act. If our wills are subject to 
His will, and our thoughts controlled by His thoughts, 
then we are led by His Spirit, and the thoughts of God 
make our lives consistent and powerful. 

The temptation in the wilderness is an illustration 
of this very thing. The varied forces of the world 
strove to conquer the Son of Man. They were de¬ 
feated. The Victor knew God’s Word, and was filled 
with God’s Spirit. Quickly the exact scripture was 
called to memory which refuted the words of the evil 
one. Human passion was controlled by divine leader¬ 
ship and inspiration. Finally, the Son of God com¬ 
manded the evil one to depart, but this after Christ 
had clearly shown His entire submission to the divine 
will. The thoughts of God controlled His life and 
action. 

Again, if God’s thoughts control us, our every 
thought, as Paul tells us, “will be brought into cap¬ 
tivity to the obedience of Christ”—every thought 


81 


THE THOUGHTS OF GOD 

brought into such obedience. The power of a thought¬ 
ful life is recognised, especially where thought and 
action coincide in a definite purpose. Great error is 
the result of occasional thoughtlessness. Many a good 
man has ruined his influence because of the word 
spoken, or the act committed in an unguarded moment. 

The banker had been trusted for years. He had the 
confidence not only of the whole city, but his name 
touched other cities. He was ruined because of one 
act which was thoughtless. He was not on his guard 
when others depended upon him. The world could not 
forgive him as it would willingly have forgiven a child, 
because that single act disclosed a nature and character 
in which there was a possible weakness. Special temp¬ 
tation, unexpected emergency, must depend upon 
thoughtful and unerring character. If we have learned 
to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience 
of Christ, our business life, our professional life, our 
personal life, will always be in harmony with the will 
of God. 

Again, the Christian life calls for sacrifice which 
discriminates; the sacrifice which the best always de¬ 
mands. Life’s good things must never rob us of life’s 
better things; life’s better things must never rob us 
of life’s best things. The sacrifice must be a living 
sacrifice, not a giving up of life. When Paul wrote 
to the Romans, he said: “I beseech you therefore, 
brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your 
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which 
is your reasonable service. And be ye not conformed 
to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing 


82 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and 
acceptable and perfect will of God.” 

What did he mean by this? How can a man live 
such a life? How can he be a living sacrifice? Only 
as his mind is transformed. Worldly conformity will 
rob him of high thinking. If transformed by the 
renewing of his mind, his personal bodily life will 
acquiesce in his mental desire. There may be much 
plain living, but there will be also much high thinking. 
“To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually 
minded is life and peace.” This by bringing every 
thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ in¬ 
evitably leads a man into a life of sacrifice, which 
creates within him the highest standard of Christian 
character. 

The closing sentence of our text has still an added 
thought. David writes: “When I awake I am still 
with Thee.” The start a man gets in the morning 
makes his day. What a wonderful gift is sleep. JYe 
retire overcome with fatigue and worn out with the 
weariness of a day’s hard labour. When we open our 
eyes for a moment we cannot think where we are or 
what the day means. These first thoughts in the morn¬ 
ing mean much in the moments and hours which follow. 

Is God in your thoughts when you awake ? Many a 
man instinctively repeats at night the prayer which his 
child-lips learned to utter, “Now I lay me down to 
sleep.” Does he rise with a prayer to God and the 
thought of God in his heart? Life is a long road and 
the twists and turns we cannot designate by prophecy. 
Each step may reveal the unexpected. Is it not well 
for us to know that “He knows,” and start each day 


83 


THE THOUGHTS OF GOD 

with the living triumphant faith which is effective? 
With David, may the thoughts of God be with us when 
we awake each morning! 

Lastly, we must consider that those things which 
are precious unto us become increasingly endeared to 
us as we grow older. If the thoughts of God, in all 
their majesty, their glory, their might, their purity, 
their beauty, grow into our lives, and into our thinking, 
we shall grow all unconsciously like Him! “Now we 
see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now 
I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am 
known.” 

We do not know what heaven is, nor what it may 
have in store for us, but this we know, it will be the 
place where He is, where His thoughts are our 
thoughts, where His life and personality and work are 
pre-eminent. He demands from us the best we can 
give. He demands the pre-eminent place here. “Seek 
ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and 
all these things shall be added unto you.” Heaven will 
take care of itself, if we do our part here and to-day. 
To think with Him, for Him and by Him now will 
mean the omniscience of heaven, when “we shall be like 
Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” 

I plead this morning for a patient, thoughtful Chris¬ 
tianity which shall result in that ultimate high standard 
of Paul, who could say, even with the loftiness of his 
ambition, “I have learned in whatsoever state I am 
therewith to be content.” It must mean that every 
thought is brought into His captivity and we, by the 
power of His Holy Spirit, will grow more and more 
like Him. 


VIII 


THE JOY OF RESTORATION 

“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault ye 
which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit 
of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be 
tempted.”— Galatians 6:i. 

Paul seems to have gained the experience of Christ’s 
truth. Christ had wonderful power in recognizing the 
worth in people who seemed to be worthless. He saw 
value in what the world regarded as valueless. The 
world to-day is inclined to disregard the value of human 
life save as it is demonstrated by efficiency. The world 
is inclined to disregard as valueless the life that has not 
attained, the one who has lived a certain number of 
years without attaining what is called success. 

But Jesus Christ had the remarkable gift of fore¬ 
seeing in many a life those valuable assets, which, once 
recognized and appropriated, meant a great deal for 
His Kingdom. For instance, how many men would 
have selected a man like Peter? If you and I had been 
leaders in the day of Jesus Christ, undoubtedly we 
would have gone to Jerusalem to find a man trained to 
the work. Jesus Christ went to the Sea of Galilee and 
picked out a rough, swearing fisherman to do that work, 
a man strong in his rugged characteristics, powerful in 
his physical strength, and He made him a great apostle. 
You and I would have been totally out of sympathy 
84 


85 


THE JOY OF RESTORATION 

with Saul of Tarsus and would have kept just as far 
away from him as we could. But Jesus Christ arrested 
him in his course and spoke to him firmly and with 
sympathy, commanding his loyalty and his life from 
that moment. This same man, Saul of Tarsus, the 
Paul who gives us our text, said: “Ye who are spirit¬ 
ual, restore such an one.” 

Go back again to Christ and see how He carried out 
this truth and how Paul gained His spirit. You re¬ 
member how Christ found a woman leading a sinful 
life. The religious leaders of that day would have 
condemned her immediately to death, but the Lord 
Jesus Christ silenced every one by saying: “He that is 
without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.” 
He saw in a poor, wretched, wronged character a 
human spark of penitence and love, and it called forth 
from His heart a response, and an invitation to the 
higher life. This was totally unseen by those whose 
religion was merely formal and mechanical. Paul had 
also that spirit: “If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye 
which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of 
meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be 
tempted.” 

The word “spiritual” has gained something of a 
sentimental meaning. It is a most abused word. Every 
new sect talks about its “spiritual” ethics. Every 
adroit heretic uses it freely and lays emphasis on his 
spiritual interpretation even if he is teaching rank 
infidelity. It is a word that is used by so many people 
to misrepresent instead of present its real significance. 

The genuine spiritual life is not a theory; it is rather 
an attainment in aim and purpose. The spiritual life is 


86 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

represented in the life that cries out to God for help 
and strength, and lives in Him. As the ninety-first 
Psalm says: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of 
the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the 
Almighty.” 

This, then, is the spiritual life. Are we spiritually 
minded ? To know, let us answer these questions: Do 
we find it a natural inclination in our lives to think 
about God before we close our eyes at night? Do we 
find it a natural expression and inclination of our lives 
to start the day with God before we rise in the morning, 
and before we enter upon the duties of the day, or see 
another face ? There are many who have these desires, 
though they will admit it becomes a matter of habit, 
rather than desire. There are many people who want 
to be spiritual and to be like Christ who really let that 
want and desire substitute for attainment. It is one 
thing to have the inclination to meet God face to face in 
the morning, and at the close of the day; but it is 
another thing to have the experience. We form a cor¬ 
rect and true opinion of our real selves if we consider 
the actual experience of our own lives when we are 
alone. 

If we have the inclination to do these things we are 
spiritual minded, and if we have not we may’gain it by 
habit. We would not enjoy the day if we did not 
cleanse our faces in the morning—it is the most natural 
thing to do; we would actually feel uncomfortable 
without it. But there are very many who are perfectly 
happy seemingly in neglecting this very thing. Many 
are not situated so that it is convenient for them to 
do so, but they could make it possible by an effort. 


THE JOY OF RESTORATION 87 

Now, it is not because it is not possible for us to be 
spiritual that we are not, but we have not formed the 
habit of letting it so become a part of our lives that we 
would never think of going without it. It is quite 
impossible, however, for one to experience a spiritual 
life, a Christian reality in life, and then go back to any 
other life and be happy. A spiritual life is a life that 
cannot exist without God, not simply a God that is 
everywhere, the God of the pantheist, who will tell you 
God is in yonder tree, as seen in bud and blossom. We, 
too, believe that God is a God of nature, but more than 
that. We have the fact that God is everywhere, the 
comprehension of all that life means and is, but He is 
our Father and Friend. If we are spiritually minded, 
we will not allow ourselves to live without God and 
without recognizing Him. 

But God will not live where sin is. The impure life 
and the spiritual life cannot go together. Impurity 
drives away the thought of God, and it does something 
worse than that; it distorts the human vision so that 
God cannot be recognized. Have you ever stood before 
a concave or convex mirror which distorts your face 
and figure so that it makes a caricature of your entire 
body? That is what sin does; it distorts—not the 
vision, but that which represents the vision—so that 
you are incapable of seeing the real as it is. That is 
why a sinner, when he sees and hears the truth, does 
not want to look or listen. 

But the spiritual life makes the vision of God normal 
so that distorted conditions no longer exist. You have 
a pain in your head, and cannot tell why; you have 
thought perhaps your physical system was weak, and 


88 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 
that pain is caused by blood centring in the back of 
your brain. Then the pain suddenly shifts and you 
suffer in the side of your head; or, at times you feel 
dizzy and your vision becomes indistinct. Some one 
advises you to go and see an oculist. You go, and 
after examining your eyes he tells you to put on 
glasses. He adjusts them and your headache stops. 
The trouble has been with your eyes. You have been 
forcing the muscles to do work which was too strong 
for them, and you have been trying to adjust your 
sight with a wrong vision; but now the glasses have 
corrected the wrong. 

Many people are thus discussing their spiritual capa¬ 
bility by forcing themselves to see what God could 
easily adjust if they would let Him. If we will just let 
the presence of God become a reality! Let sin go out 
and God come in—we will have a normal view of the 
spiritual life and will seek to do as God planned and 
arranged. 

Natural tendency is to criticise others. It is the most 
natural thing in the world. I remember a just rebuke 
I once had. I was speaking of a rather laughable 
experience. Probably I had told it a dozen times. The 
man of whom the story was told was a friend, and it 
was told simply as a joke; but the friend to whom I 
told it replied: “Why do you tell that ? It may be a 
good joke, but after all it carries with it the thought 
that our friend spoiled a good time, ruined a lovely 
occasion by his thoughtlessness.” He added: “We are 
both very fond of that man, and his friends are ours, 
but now it will be an effort to think or speak of him 


THE JOY OF RESTORATION 89 

without recalling this incident, and I wish I hadn’t 
heard it.” 

His frankness taught me a great lesson. What is 
the use? I have a motto in my study: “Forget it; it 
may not be true.” A lot of things we should forget; 
they may not be true. 

Even more important is the fact that spiritually 
minded men and women aim to glorify their Lord. 
“God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the 
Lord Jesus Christ.” In other words, the spiritually 
minded man is looking for God’s glory. He will cut 
out of his own life a great many things which his own 
inclination would place there. 

Now, see how this is related to other lives. Human 
nature is weak. The weakness of human nature is not 
confined to those lacking in will-power, although it is 
undoubtedly true that the weak-minded sin a great deal 
more than those who have strong will-power; hence, 
they need a great deal more help. The Christian ought 
to be ready early and late to help others. 

Call to mind the poor man who fell among thieves. 
A Scribe passed by, a Levite passed by, and then a 
good man, a Samaritan, came along and helped that 
poor man. Many men have fallen among thieves of 
dishonesty, thieves of evil companionship. Many a 
man has fallen among thieves of poverty. A lad was 
standing on the street corner shivering, indecision and 
sadness in his face. Near by a man was standing. In 
a sudden burst of conversation and natural good- 
fellowship he said: “My lad, are you waiting for the 
car ?” “No, I am not waiting for a car—I’m tired to 
death. I’m just waiting.” “Well, you will freeze to 


90 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

death if you stand there in the cold. Put on a coat.” 
“I haven’t a coat,” the other said. “Well, then, why 
don’t you walk?” “I have walked until I’m tired out; 
if I freeze to death, I will freeze to death.” “What is 
the matter with you anyway?” asked the man. “I don’t 
know,” replied the lad. “I haven’t anything to do; 
I haven’t anywhere to go, and I won’t beg. I may die 
—death isn’t at all troublesome to me. I won’t take my 
life because God gave it to me, and I haven’t any right 
to take it.” That was all. He would not accept help, 
nor would he ride, and so they walked together. 
Finally, the man found out the truth, that the worst 
enemy the fellow had was poverty! That man helped 
his friend to work, and poverty fled. 

I took down a book from the shelf the other day and 
read a few pages. The author was trying to say that 
poverty is always the result of sin; but it is not. For 
some reason or other that lad had not had what you 
and I call a chance. We do not know what was the 
matter. Because just as soon as that lad was given a 
chance, he succeeded splendidly, and he is an honoured 
man to-day. He just needed a little help and a little 
human sympathy. But, you say, he was an exception, 
one in a hundred. That is like many another remark— 
ninety-nine out of a hundred, or nine out of ten; we 
say these things, and they don’t mean anything. I 
know that he was an exception, but I know that poverty 
had become his fate. We do not know enough of his 
story to know what happened to place him where he 
was, but we know this, that he was a type. And we 
know that such cases are on every side of us. Poor 
people do not want to be patronised; the man or woman 


91 


THE JOY OF RESTORATION 

who will be patronised is not worthy o*f help. Do not 
be patronising. ‘Til help you,” you say, and the proud 
man answers: “I do not want your help; I am a man 
myself.” But they do want human sympathy and a 
chance. They want confidence and love and something 
to do. Restore men to God by restoring them to 
themselves. 

You will be fooled sometimes. Well, what if you 
are? The man whom you tried to help never forgets 
your act. We must restore people. What if a man 
does sin and fall ? Even then you and I ought to seek 
to restore him. You say: “He has fallen, and it is all 
over with him.” All over? It is a good deal harder 
to be patient with a man than to denounce him because 
he has failed. You cannot win a dog’s affection by 
kicking him; you cannot gain human beings by scorning 
them when they have slipped. What the fallen man 
needs is confidence and patience. If a man has fallen 
among the thieves of his own wretched habits, how do 
you know how hard he has fought for years to con¬ 
quer ? He may be making ten times as brave a fight to 
stand on his feet as you have ever made. 

Some one said: “I would be ashamed to be seen 
walking with a drunkard.” Well, I would not. I 
would rather walk with a drunkard than to lose the 
chance of restoring him. What you and I need in this 
world is the wish and patience of Jesus Christ to 
restore men. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Gospel 
of restoration. 

Do you realise that power of restoration may be 
sifted down to restoration in your own life? I remem¬ 
ber the first time I ever heard Mr. Moody. I was 


92 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

eleven years old. I used to sing alto; I loved to sing. 
They asked me if I would not sing in the Moody choir, 
and I sang until I was ashamed to stand up alone 
among so many women. I remember what he said in 
substance. He said: “Some of you people here have 
not the thrill that that boy has when he sings.” He 
pointed to me, and I wished I could get out. He con¬ 
tinued: “You have not the same thrill and joy.” I 
have never forgotten it. I did not know then but now 
I know exactly what he meant. I felt it then, but it 
was all so natural. I have oftentimes wanted to feel it 
since then. I remember one of the old pieces we used 
to sing: 

Dare to be a Daniel, 

Dare to stand alone, 

Dare to have a purpose firm, 

Dare to make it known. 

I remember another of those songs that used to 
thrill me. I never heard a church choir thrill me as 
those songs did. The other song ran like this: 

Now just a word for Jesus, 

’Twill help us on our way; 

One little word for Jesus, 

Oh, speak, or sing, or pray. 

What a simple thing it is, yet it thrills me. And 
why? It is associated with the songs of my boyhood. 
Now, you, too, have had that thrill of religious faith 
at times. It may have been something that seemed to 
lift you right out of yourself and forced you to say: 
“I want to be better. I want to fight this thing out 
now.” You think you have gotten beyond it. Your 
life has become calloused, but I tell you, we need it, 


93 


THE JOY OF RESTORATION 

every one of us needs it. God is willing to restore unto 
us the joy of Himself if we will let Him. 

To-morrow morning I go as a pastor and friend to a 
home in this church to stand by one, a loved mother, 
who for many years has been all that a mother could 
be. She was the widow of the one who led the singing 
here for so many years, and whose life and song meant 
so much to this congregation. She has passed on now 
to be with him and her Master. Why, do you know, 1 
cannot go to that service to-morrow morning without 
schooling myself to control my emotion, because it 
takes me back to my own mother and my own home. 
Some of you have had the same experience. It is the 
thrill of recognition of human love as God lives in the 
lives of those whom we love, and who have given their 
best selves to us. 

Men and women, we need it. He will restore unto 
us the joy of salvation if we will let Him. Some of 
you people here to-night have not been connected with 
a church for years. You have been out of touch with 
the living activity of the Church of God, and still you 
were dedicated to Christ as little children. You once 
joined the Church of God, but in the restlessness of a 
great city the weeks and the years have passed by, and 
you have forgotten God. He will restore unto you the 
joy of His salvation if you will let Him. 

And the last thought is this: In trying to restore 
others and in restoring yourself you will realise the 
wonderful forgiveness of God and the sins of your own 
heart. 

You know the fifty-first Psalm: “Have mercy upon 
me, O God, according to thy loving kindness; accord- 


94 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

ing unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out 
my transgressions.” And then in the twelfth verse 
David says: “Restore unto me the joy of thy salva¬ 
tion.” Do you know how David happened to write 
that Psalm? David, the King, had committed a most 
dastardly deed. He had forgotten his God; overcome 
by a wicked passion he had placed a soldier, the hus¬ 
band of one of the women of his own nation, in the 
front rank of the battle in order that he might be 
slain, and then he took that man’s wife to be his wife. 
It was as if he had murdered a man loyal to him, a 
patriot. And yet, when he realised the awful wicked¬ 
ness of his sin, he cried out to God in anguish and in 
penitence: “Have mercy upon me, O God, restore unto 
me the joy of thy salvation.” 

Prisoners condemned to death have given their 
hearts to God and have died simple-hearted, loving 
Christians. I care not what your sin or mine may be 
or have been. What we need is the restoration of the 
life of the Master in our hearts and lives. 

Men and women, I plead with you to repent, no 
matter what the sin. Oh, let Him restore you! Then 
you will be out in the world early and late, day after 
day, to seek to restore others who need the salvation of 
our God through Jesus Christ., 


IX 


MY PRESENCE SHALL GO WITH THEE 

“If Thy presence go not with me, carry me not up 
hence.”— Exodus 33:14-15. 

In those early days of long ago, history was not read 
as it is to-day. The literature of life was limited and 
largely the composite of the man’s experience trans¬ 
mitted from mouth to ear. Some of the nations had 
their literature, it is true, as certain hieroglyphics and 
characters cut in ancient stones, and ancient manu¬ 
scripts reveal to us, but those ancient indications reveal 
little of the associations men had with one another. 
But they were taught the knowledge of God, among 
the great leaders of Israel, even before Israel was a 
nation. And especially this great leader, whom God so 
signally called, was one in reality of faith and in the 
power of a living word; for he believed God. Whether 
it was the burning bush, that bush which is the emblem 
of the Scottish and the Helvetian churches, or other 
experiences, it was the evidence of the presence of God 
who spoke in every experience of his life and nature. 
Every forward step in the history of the Israelites 
manifested the presence of God. 

The great sins of nations have been the sins which 
have been subtle in influence. These are the sins that 
have steadily destroyed. Remember when that prophet 
95 


96 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

of old would not curse the Israelites, although great 
results and a great reward were offered him, how once 
and again he went before God, even when God told him 
he should bless Israel, and although he did not dare to 
curse Israel, he did something worse! Balaam taught 
the children of Israel to pretend to be religious and 
then give their lives over to impurity and wrong¬ 
doing. And a curse fell upon that people through the 
influence of a so-called prophet, because, under the 
pretense of religion, he allowed them to break God’s 
laws in immoral practices. 

The evidence of history has been that the most vital 
sins are those that creep steadily into our lives because 
of wrong purpose. Thus the subtle influence of sin 
and ambition and wrong depletes unconsciously, and 
injures and destroys that which should upbuild and 
construct for God,—not because we wish it, but because 
we are yielding to those things which lead us from God. 

Now, God did not say that money was the root of all 
evil. Money is one of the greatest blessings in all the 
world; but the love of money, the coveting of money is 
where the sin lies. If a man seeks money that he may 
use it for the best interests of his home, of the com¬ 
munity, of the Church of Christ, God will honour and 
bless him. There are thousands of men who are using 
their money for these very purposes. Many a man, 
like that good man of old who took his own tomb and 
placed the Saviour’s remains within it! He could never 
have given that tomb if God had not blessed him 
temporarily. Thousands of men are in this world 
whom God has so blessed, and they are honouring 
Him. 


MY PRESENCE SHALL GO WITH THEE 97 

My dear people, I say with all my heart that the very 
opportunities which are ours from our surroundings, 
which are so dear to us in the sacred associations of 
lile, and so many of them dear to us in this old build¬ 
ing, we could never have attained unless men and 
women of large heart and abundant means had made 
them possible. God has given them to us, not only in 
the erection of a building, but this church has had the 
heritage for over forty years in her interest in the work 
of our city and the world—you have been willing to 
worship in inadequate surroundings in order to do 
more for the community and the world. 

The new growth and development of this work 
would never have been possible if we had not had the 
same vision, the same faith, and the willing assistance 
of those whom God has blessed and honoured. But with 
our blessings we are warned of our dangers. 

The subtle sin is when those who are receiving His 
blessings and the gifts of wealth are interested increas¬ 
ingly in the things pertaining only to this life, without 
sharing the right proportion of their blessings with the 
far-reaching interests of God. The future of a church 
is not related to its externals, not primarily to its build¬ 
ings, nor to its form of worship; but, to the spiritual 
strength and growth of its members. Men and women 
growing up within its membership must be strong in 
their belief of His Son; they must seek first the things 
which pertain to God and realise God’s presence amid 
the actual realities in life. 

It is not strange that Moses was perplexed, and that 
those related to him wondered how God could lead 
them. I wonder if we can begin to conceive what it 


98 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

meant to realise the responsibility resting on him be¬ 
cause of the weakness of so many who did not trust 
him; the weakness of so many who were influenced by 
circumstantial conditions! 

The Lord said unto Moses, “Depart, and go up 
hence.” God believed in him, and Moses believed in 
God! But there was a mutual relationship that became 
actual because of God’s presence in his life. Then the 
assurance was back of it: “Fear not, I will go with 
thee, I will be with thee.” That man was not merely 
an individual, not merely a great military genius! Read 
Josephus and some of the other historians, and you will 
find that this man, this same Moses, was able to lead a 
great host of Egyptians against the Ethiopians. He 
was trained with splendid character and self-discipline 
and influence, but he needed more. He was skilled in 
scholarship and his attainments were the result of long 
and severe training. He was beautiful to look upon, 
aside from the strength of his manliness. Historians 
tell us that workmen used to get up early in the 
morning and walk two or three miles out of their way 
that they might get a look at the young Moses, and see 
the beauty and strength in his countenance. But, with 
all his splendid equipment, he could not lead Israel. 
He was afraid; he needed God. “Fear not, I will go 
with thee, I am with thee.” 

When he went up, with that sacred purpose and 
heroic aim, he said, “Lord, take me not up hence unless 
Thou goest with me.” Then look back and see two 
men fighting together, and one conquering the other. 
Moses stepped in and used his power. And then again 
he intervened another time, and one said: “Who made 


MY PRESENCE SHALL GO WITH THEE 99 


thee governor over us?” His own people disregarded 
him. Then God sent him to the wilderness. Then 
see him in that Sinai desert where those great rocks 
rise majestically to the skies, and where he watches the 
eagle in her eyrie. See him as he climbs those great 
heights and looks down upon those eaglets in their 
nests! As he sees the wilderness of the storms! Moses 
is really learning the glory of his God as he is alone 
with Him in the desert at Sinai; and there he learns 
to trust God. See him when the time came when God 
called him; see his brow as it knits; as he forsakes 
Egypt; he thinks of the responsibilities before him. 
Then he says, “Lord, I love my people. I know their 
hands are worn, their bodies bleeding and their backs 
have felt the whip of the taskmaster! I will leave 
Egypt, for I choose rather to suffer affliction with the 
people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a 
season.” 

That was the type of a man he was: choosing rather 
to suffer affliction with the people of God. 

And now this man of God faces the problem of his 
life and says, “Suffer me not to go hence unless Thou 
go with me.” And the reassuring word comes back in 
our theme, “My presence shall go with thee.” 

The living faith in the future is the conviction of 
the present. To-day we live—to-morrow we die. No, 
we do not! For “he that believeth on me shall never 
die.” 

What words! Take them in their exactness: “He 
that believeth shall never die” But to-day is the living 
of them. To-morrow is God’s. What of the morrow? 
How little we know! The stones which we build one 


100 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

upon another fit in their places. The buildings which 
we erect, the associations of the material world, in time 
crumble to dust, but something is never destroyed. 
The character which you put into your child, and which 
you cultivate and develop, lives in the child, and on in 
his child, and on in his child, to the hundreds of genera¬ 
tions ; and thus we build stones one upon another, and 
this temple is erected that you and I may honor God 
with permanent characters. 

Thus nations are made, and thus history is made, and 
this is the crowning blessing of Almighty God. How 
do we dare go up hence unless His Spirit go with us ? 
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of 
my heart be acceptable in Thy sight.” 

And just a word as we look back. One day, on one 
of the great famous mountains of Switzerland, after 
the helpful machinery of electricity and a long climb, 
we reached the summit. But it was all cloud and mist; 
not a single vision-point. We had heard of the rich¬ 
ness of the great Bernese Overland with its matchless 
splendor and its changing colors. But not a sight. All 
was mist. And then, suddenly, by a mere accident, as 
it were, we gained a vista through the cloud; just as if 
a great archway had been created, and there the vast 
Overland reached a hundred miles into the vista, with 
its rich color and majesty; and then, the mist again, and 
all was gone—but the sight we have never forgotten. 

Look for a moment, for this service is not one of 
eulogy, not one of sadness; look for a moment 
through the vista of years, and see what is before us. 
Reaching back—not forty years, but more—to the 
blending of this church in her union from those 


MY PRESENCE SHALL GO WITH THEE 101 

churches which had been related to us, those south of 
us; read the names of the saints of God. But this will 
come later in the historical relationships that we are to 
talk about in the week to come. 

Paul’s great words: “Forgetting those things which 
are behind and reaching forth unto those things which 
are before,” were not spoken as he considered the 
errors and failings of his life, but were given to us just 
after he had repeated the noble conditions in his life 
which made him first among his people in inheritance 
and blessing. “If any other man thinketh that he hath 
whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: Circum¬ 
cised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe 
of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching 
the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the 
church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, 
blameless. But what things were gain to me, those I 
counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all 
things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of 
Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the 
loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I 
may win Christ. And be found in him, not having 
mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that 
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness 
which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and 
the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his 
sufferings, being made comformable unto his death: If 
by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of 
the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either 
were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may 
apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of 
Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have 


102 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those 
things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those 
things which are before. I press toward the mark for 
the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” 

It is only a look, but close for a moment your eyes 
and see and think of those whose names are indelibly 
written upon the history of this church, whose lives 
and characters make sacred the associations of the past. 
It is not at all strange that some have said, “I want 
my old pew.” It is not strange that some should cling 
to the associations that are here. The constant com¬ 
munion services as they have sped month by month; the 
birth of children and their coming into the church; 
the baptising of little children who now have grown 
into manhood and womanhood, and whose own little 
children have been baptised here. You remember last 
Thanksgiving—or it may have been Christmas—one of 
those who united with us was the fourth generation to 
unite with this church. 

Think of what it means. The vista is ours, and we 
should have the warmth of a father’s love! And God 
is everywhere with us. “My presence shall go with 
thee.” Eternal in structure. My vital thought in the 
divine purpose for any and all the members and officers 
of this church is to establish the reality of God’s sacred 
Truth; “Come up hence; I will be with thee.” “My 
presence shall abide with thee.” 

(Preached by Dr. Stone the last Sunday in the Old Fourth 
Church.) 


X 


THE APPEAL OF THE GOSPEL MINISTRY 

“Then said I, Here am I; send me.”— Isaiah 6 :8. 

In considering a subject such as this one, it is usually 
necessary for a speaker to gain the confidence of his 
audience before he can impress them with a sense of 
personal responsibility. May I ask you to give me a 
frank, sympathetic hearing from the very first ? 

I come to you from the thick of active work in a 
large city parish, and I assure you I would rather be at 
Work there now than speaking here, for I have always 
discredited the man who is more anxious to be heard or 
seen away from home than at home and working at 
his job. 

The importance of this subject, however, warrants 
earnest thought and general as well as individual atten¬ 
tion. It is not to be relegated to those who have decided 
to study for the ministry or enter mission fields, but 
must be faced also by those who aim to make the most 
of their lives and have not decided what to do. 

Jesus Christ is worthy of the best the nation has, and 
needs able men, with strong bodies, alert minds and 
pure hearts to do His work in ministering to the world. 

At one time Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Amherst and 
other leading colleges sent a large percentage of their 
sons into the ministry. This is not so to-day. In 
103 


104 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

recent decades the smaller denominational institutions 
have taken a far lead in providing these men. In some 
of our Western States it is reported that more men 
without college training are now ordained as ministers 
than those who have had academic study. This ques¬ 
tion demands thought and the thought of men who are 
now studying in our American colleges. Here is a field 
fitted to every type of man and a field which needs men 
of strength and character; men who are willing to 
“endure hardness,” and men who are not afraid of 
work. The old popular falsity that any man can enter 
the ministry, especially the man who cannot succeed at 
other things, is worn out. It never was true, but it is 
farther from the truth now than ever. A man who 
cannot succeed in almost anything he undertakes is not 
the man we need, but rather the man who can succeed 
elsewhere will succeed here and is needed. Men are 
succeeding in the ministry to-day who could and would 
succeed anywhere, and are in countless instances giving 
up opportunities which are attractive, fascinating and 
lucrative. 

We ask you first to consider the limit of life as re¬ 
lated to death. 

Estimating three generations to a century, almost 
sixty generations have gone since Jesus Christ was 
born. We understand sixteen hundred millions of 
people inhabit the earth to-day. The sixty generations 
mean that over ninety billion people have lived and died 
since Christ came. 

The preaching of the Gospel takes on astounding 
proportion where such a task, past, present and future, 
faces us. The ministers and missionaries, above all 


THE APPEAL OF GOSPEL MINISTRY 105 

other men, are set apart to proclaim and reveal the 
mystery and truth of life and death to men, and yet no 
other calling is looked upon so carelessly and indiffer¬ 
ently by the majority of men and students. “Life and 
Immortality” were brought to light by Jesus Christ, 
and these for the world. If a man lives his seventy or 
eighty years, with fifty or sixty of them in active 
service, what does it all amount to if he is only an 
accumulator, a collector, or a seeker and gatherer of 
things, called pleasure, goods or money ? 

When death comes he leaves it all. But if he has 
used his life aright and influenced others aright that 
influence and life will stretch out into eternal and ever¬ 
lasting force. 

“Lives of great men all remind us, 

We can make our lives sublime, 

And departing, leave behind us —” 

These are the worth-whiles of life. No work nor 
calling exists which compares with the minister’s oppor¬ 
tunity to set in perpetual motion moral and worthy 
forces centring in the very life of the future and an 
eternal future. 

Again, the appeal is made to you to consider the 
Gospel ministry because of the reawakened conscience 
of spiritual values. 

Men are conscious of a great need. Editors, edu¬ 
cators, business men—all are asking, what can and will 
correct the disorders of society? What will prevent 
the recurrence and growth of crime and lawlessness? 
Sin has just wrought a world-wide international devas- 


106 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

tation and disorder. Material dependence seems sui¬ 
cidal. Spiritual value has become self-assertive. 

From the “Wall Street Journal” to the soap-box 
orator men are calling for a new order “wherein dwell- 
eth righteousness.” Studying the philosophy of religion 
has not given it to men. The conscience is aroused and 
the heart and intellect are sensitive to the appeal of the 
Spirit of God, and everywhere the world is seeking 
men who know God to lead them. 

The Church of Christ is making a new appeal to men. 
Churches by the score have more men in them than 
women. Men with a message and spiritual vision are 
attracting men and guiding this new conscience into 
faith and service. This wave is gaining size and force, 
and it sweeps on with tidal proportion. A new con¬ 
science demands a new devotion, and a new commit¬ 
ment of men of training, purpose and power. 

This leads us to the appeal of the world's need. 

This, of course, is the old and controlling argument, 
and it ever will be. An unmet need will never be less 
nor more silent a need. God sent His Son to save the 
world, and that world is not yet saved. Never have we 
known that need as now. The printed page, the open 
book, the myriad voices who proclaim, the daily press, 
the wires of the telegraph and telephone, the wireless, 
the radio, the ocean steamers, the post-office systems 
which fill the whole earth—these all tell and re-echo the 
world’s need. 

Superstition, idolatry, ignorance, immorality, fam¬ 
ine, disease, crime, prejudice, jealousy, deceit, slavery 
and above all, war, with all its deeds and effects, force 


THE APPEAL OF GOSPEL MINISTRY 107 

upon us the need the old world has for the saving, con¬ 
structing power of Christian character and life. 

Who can lead and assist in meeting this need better 
than a trained and tried ministry ? 

Growing out of this world-need a double appeal de¬ 
velops : it is the appeal of the unattained and the appeal 
of the unattempted . These have the spirit of the 
pioneer in them. 

Why do we love to read Francis Parkman’s his¬ 
tories ? Because they appeal to the pioneer in us. He 
writes of men who attempted the unattained and un¬ 
attempted. 

In the mountains or deep woods, we can get back 
where the foot of man has not trod, or where only the 
red man has stalked, and there we love to go, and why ? 
Because there is a fascination in the unattained. This 
is a natural human inclination, but when linked to faith 
and purpose it becomes a mighty and irresistible force. 

It sent out Carey and Moffat and Henry Martyn as y 
pioneers over a century ago. It has been sending out 
men of vision ever since. It discovered this new world 
through Columbus. It guided the Mayflower and 
landed the Pilgrim Fathers. 

When I was a lad of high school age, and even later, 
when in Amherst College, there was a very popular 
book written by Professor Matthews entitled “Getting 
On in the World.” Many a college essay and oration 
found its suggestion in those pages. How well I 
remember what it said in substance as to the power of 
the unattained. This theme meant much to the college 
students of those days. It was in those days that the 
Student Volunteer Movement, the Morning Watch and 


108 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

kindred movements were born. They were generated 
in the enthusiasm of this great power of the unattained. 

Such purpose sent Adolphus Good to the West 
African Mission, and Wilder and Foreman to India, 
and the Ewings to India, and Stead to Persia, and 
Rodgers to the Philippines. It put men of brain, brawn 
and breeding into the ministry as well—men who saw 
J a great work to be done and gave themselves freely, 
even if they could do but a small part of it. 

This appeal of the unattained is, as we have seen, 
closely associated with the appeal of the unattempted. 
The old missionary who made his motto, “Expect great 
things from God and attempt great things for God,” 
had the vision. He was not willing to let God act with¬ 
out acting himself. His great expectations were his 
great attempts, and he never let the precedent of the 
unattempted quell his enthusiasm. 

The unattempted for God and man will always be 
the chance which faces the man of size and character. 
Once when preaching at Princeton, during the lead¬ 
ership of Mr. Wilson, he mentioned a remarkable 
sermon recently preached by Dr. Richards, then pastor 
of the Brick Church in New York. The subject was 
“The Monotony of Sin” He told how every form of 
sin was old long ago; the ancient cities of Nineveh and 
Babylon knew all forms of sin. It had lost its original¬ 
ity. But when a human life comes into touch with 
Jesus Christ new discoveries in righteousness develop, 
for a new personality comes into contact with divine 
wisdom and suggestion. The unattained is attempted, 
and only God knows how great the result and how 
marvellous the influence may be. 


THE APPEAL OF GOSPEL MINISTRY 109 


The unattempted for God is a future opportunity in 
the Christian ministry as never before. God and man 
want ministers and men who are different. We want 
men who are not afraid of new problems, who glory in 
difficulties, who face the future, hard as it may be, with 
determination and a smile, who “know no future but 
God,” who “act, act in the living present, heart within 
and God o’erhead.” Men, who like Abraham of old, 
go out “they know not where,” but go with vigour and 
faith to attempt for God the unattempted. 

This is not of necessity a call from afar, nor a call to 
cross the desert or the sea. The hardest task to-day 
may be in one’s own state or city; in fact, at one’s very 
door. The ministry at home needs able and inde¬ 
pendent men to guide and reinforce the strategic 
centres so swiftly building in the growth of our day. 

Who knows what God may do with those who will 
trust Him, giving themselves wholly to his direction! 
The power of God follows the attempts of men when 
faith, will, diligence and consecration unite. 

Some years ago a student of Princeton was riding 
past Lawrenceville on the Trenton trolley when he was 
addressed by his seatmate and in the conversation was 
asked to go out to India to help in the work they were 
trying to do at Allahabad. The agricultural oppor¬ 
tunity was undeveloped and unattempted. He went, 
and now the work of Sam Higginbottom is known 
from sea to sea. He has done as much, if not more, to 
revolutionise the soil-cultivation of India and help the 
native in his native soil as any living man, and the end 
is not yet. 

In Chicago we have a man, still young, who came to 


110 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

our city about a dozen years ago. He was unknown 
and inexperienced, save in a small church where he had 
begun his ministry in a small suburban city, but he 
was an attempter. This man has built up one of the 
strongest and livest church organisations in the Central 
West and they are soon to build their new church. He 
was not over strong, nor particularly gifted, but he was 
a man of large faith, unlimited vision, industrious 
energy and willing attempt. He has built himself and 
his church into our city and its problems. His influence 
cannot be estimated. He is honoured, respected and 
beloved. 

Others like him are doing the same thing with their 
own personalities and gifts all over the nation. The 
young men in the ministry to-day are becoming a 
power in so far as they are men of God, men of the 
Word, and men who live with and like Jesus Christ, 
but they need reinforcement. 

The appeal of the Gospel ministry has always evi¬ 
denced the heroic. Courage has characterised the min¬ 
istry from the days of Stephen and St. Paul. The front 
rank means courage, and ever will. 

“Move to the fore, 

Say not another is fitter than thou, 

Shame to thy shrinking, up, face thy task now. 
Own thyself equal to all a soul may. 

Cease thy evading, God needs thee to-day. 

“Move to the fore. 

God Himself waits and must wait till thou come; 
Men are God’s prophets tho’ ages lie dumb; 

Halts the Christ kingdom with conquests so near ? 
Thou art the cause then, thou soul in the rear, 

Move to the fore.” 


THE APPEAL OF GOSPEL MINISTRY 111 

When I was a pastor in Baltimore, many years ago, 
a student from the Johns Hopkins Medical attracted 
my attention and won my admiration and affection. 
He came across the city, rain or shine, faithfully 
attended our services at Brown Memorial Church, and 
among other things started a normal class for Bible 
study in our Bible school. 

During his course of four years he diligently read 
and studied books on China, India, Africa, Siam, 
Japan, South America and other countries. Whenever 
I asked him where he was going he seemed uncertain. 
His strong personality, winsome independence, striking 
endurance, evident unselfishness and unflinching but 
humble faith were notable. 

One day he asked me if I cared if he did not go out 
under our own denominational board, and receiving 
the answer that that was, after all, secondary, he volun¬ 
teered the information that he wanted to go to Arabia. 
“Why Arabia?” was asked. “Well,” came the honest 
reply, “it’s the hardest field I can find and one of the 
most needy, and nobody else seems to want to go 
there.” He went. About that time Dr. Samuel 
Zwemer, that blessed minister of Jesus Christ and 
great heroic soul, was transferred from Arabia to take 
charge of all the work among the followers of Islam, 
and was stationed in Cairo in Egypt. This same Dr. 
Paul Harrison, fresh from Johns Hopkins, prac¬ 
tically took his place, and from Dr. Zwemer’s own lips 
came the testimony after three years that “Harrison is 
a prince, one of the most useful Christian forces in 
that vast untouched country of history, desert and 
need.” Read Harrison’s article on Arabia in a recent 


112 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 
number of “The Atlantic Monthly” if you would know 
this modern hero. 

Once when operating on a famous Arabian the need 
quickly arose of transmitting a delicate bit of flesh from 
the living to save a life. When others hesitated this 
medical man and minister himself volunteered, letting 
others finish the operation, and thus saved the life. 
That Arabian gave the Lord the glory and declared he 
had never known such faith and love before, nor seen 
this kind of Christianity revealed. 

When I was speaking at his University, the Univer¬ 
sity of Nebraska, last fall they cheered him, twelve 
hundred strong, at a gathering of students, and one 
full-souled student shouted amidst the applause, “Men 
like Paul Harrison have put college on the map.” 

This type of men is needed in America as well as in 
Arabia, and the reflex influence of their lives is needed 
in our colleges to inspire other red-blooded, vital men 
to follow their example. Sometimes when I looked at 
the men in McCormick Seminary, where I had the privi¬ 
lege of teaching last fall for a friend who was ill, I 
thanked God for the type of men who are responding 
to the call and going out to preach the irresistible 
Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

This is the heroic task for you men to consider. 
Your influence here and now in influencing your college 
mates is far greater than you know. One year at 
Northfield, yes, a dozen years ago, I saw a lad sitting in 
the front row who seemed uneasy and restless. Dr. 
Grenfell was speaking that night on “The Heroic in 
Service.” Soon the fellow, whose face showed his / 
high calibre, was won. He became intensely interested. 


THE APPEAL OF GOSPEL MINISTRY 113 

After the meeting he was eager to be introduced to Dr. 
Grenfell. I walked away with the lad. ‘‘Father wants 
me to go to Europe next year/’ he volunteered. He 
had graduated from Cornell the June before. “But 
after to-night’s talk,” he said, “I’m going back to col¬ 
lege and get hold of the Fraternity bunch,” and he did. 
In November I had a postal from Ted Mercer which 
read, “Eight hundred Frat men out to-night to hear 
me,” and then he added the name of this man, saying, 
“he is responsible for it.” 

Young men, now is your biggest influence. To de¬ 
cide now means to influence the other fellow. To 
consider this appeal seriously means to call it to the 
attention of the other men in college and university. 

Before closing this appeal I want to impress you 
with the emergency of this call. The emergency man 
is one of the most valuable men to his time. The Gospel 
ministry will always need recruits, but these days of 
uncertainty, these difficult readjustment and recon¬ 
struction days are extreme in their need. As one who 
sees and feels and experiences the need, I appeal to you 
men of student life. I appeal to all types and kinds. 
God can use you. Not only the scholarly men, the 
eloquent men, the pious men, but all of you. He needs 
rugged Peters just as much as business and executive 
Matthews. He needs faithful Lukes and magnetic, 
passion-filled, vision-souled Johns. We are facing a 
great emergency. 

Did you ever see an unassisted triple play on the 
baseball field ? I never saw but one. The third base- 
man seemed to anticipate, to have some intuition. This 


114 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

sort of sixth sense makes great players in every game 
of life. It creates the emergency man. He should 
have played up nearer second, but the game was intense. 
The outfield had played the first half of the ninth; the 
score was six to four in their favour. The team at bat 
was playing its last half of the ninth. No one was out. 
The bases were full, every runner taking a good lead. 
Their heaviest batter was up. The pitcher swung; the 
third baseman, quite out of the ordinary, ran over and 
covered third; the batter put a hard high liner right over 
third like a cannon ball; it looked like a deep field hit; 
each runner was off! The third baseman went up in 
the air with his gloved hand, nailed the ball, came down 
on the bag, reached out and touched the man speeding 
from second over third for home; threw down his 
glove, walked in; it was all over. One, two, three, 
unassisted. The crowd didn’t realise, was paralysed, 
then went mad, and the third baseman was carried high 
on the shoulders of his comrades from the field. 

He was an emergency man. Are you ? The game is 
on. It is intense. We’re ahead, but the bases are full. 
Hardhitting men are at bat. With the mind and power 
of Jesus Christ you can be an emergency man! Will 
you? 

Students of Wabash College, yours has been an 
earnest history. Together with other college men you 
have an Alma Mater and a name of which to be proud. 
Your sons, like the sons of my Alma Mater, Amherst 
have been in the past leaders in the ministry, as in every 
field. Will you follow on? Will you help our Cham' 
pion, Jesus Christ, when and where most He needs 


THE APPEAL OF GOSPEL MINISTRY 115 


you? Will you think and pray upon the great subject 
of this appeal, and will you join us who are spending 
our lives, and that right heartily and happily, for God 
and men in the Gospel ministry of Jesus Christ? 

(First lectures on “The Ministry” under the John N. Mills 
foundation at Wabash College.) 


XI 


RESPONSIBILITIES OF GREAT RICHES 

“All these things have I observed; what lack I 
yet?”—M atthew 19:20. 

This story of the rich young ruler who came to the 
Master seeking the inheritance of eternal life is one of 
the most popular and influential stories of all Gospel 
writing. Matthew, Mark and Luke all record it. There 
is a naturalness and tenderness in the story which 
appeal to all. The question which the rich young ruler 
sought to have answered, the one great question deep 
down in the human heart, ever remains. What is 
immortality ? What must I do that I may inherit eter¬ 
nal life? 

A fellow minister recently repeated the conversation 
of a companion seated near him on his journey from 
California. The man was a noted character in the 
public humour of the day and was well known in the 
moving picture world, but a rough, coarse man. He 
was telling of a great contract which awaited him in 
the east and how after he had met his engagement he 
would be paid a large amount of money. 

“Well,” said my friend, “what then?” 

“Oh,” he said, “then I am going to settle down for a 
good time and have all the fun that is coming to any 
man—live on my wealth, and do what I please.” 

116 


RESPONSIBILITIES OF GREAT RICHES 117 

My friend said in reply, “And what then ?” 

“Oh,” he said, “I will do a little work now and then, 
but with money enough to live on I am going to retire 
and grow old comfortably.” 

“But what then ?” 

“Oh,” he said, “I suppose I shall grow old and make 
the most of it.” 

My friend still persisted: “And what then ?” 

Whereupon the man arose somewhat uneasily and 
said: “Well, we won’t go into that,” and he went up 
into the smoker. 

It is the same old question—What must I do to 
inherit eternal life? But instead of coming from a 
careless, thoughtless spendthrift who had made money 
easily, it came to the Saviour from a well-to-do young 
man who was earnest as to his future, who wished to 
know the price of service in attaining eternal life. The 
commandments which the Saviour selected in reply to 
his question are notable ones. They relate to the rights 
of mankind; to the order of society; to purity of life; 
to honesty among men; to the protection of the home, 
and that other great command added which touched the 
neighbourliness of life, and which answers all ques¬ 
tions of strife, whether among men or nations: “Thou 
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” 

The young man had been true to these commands; 
he had lived a consistent life; but something was lack¬ 
ing. “What lack I yet?” he asked the Master. Then 
came a clear, specific statement of his sins. The Master 
uncovered to him the bare, actual tragedy of his life, 
all unseen and unknown, for it was covered by good 
deeds and other consistent living. “Go, sell that which 


118 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

thou hast, and give to the poor; and thou shalt have 
treasure in heaven.” 

The philosopher of old said: “Not one penny can 
we take with us into the unknown land.” No matter 
what the wealth of this rich young ruler, it was not 
enough to gain an entrance into that eternity of life 
where God forever dwells with his own. Doctor 
Johnson once said, “Attainment is followed by neglect 
and possession by disgust.” He might have added, 
“Mere attainment is followed by neglect and mere pos¬ 
session by disgust.” 

This young man, with all his rich possession and his 
earnest life, was possessed by these things, instead of 
possessing them. His attainment was followed by 
neglect, his possession by disgust, and he went away 
sorrowful. The greatest peril of possession is in its 
control: it controls mankind; it controls us, instead of 
allowing us to control it. 

The war so recently finished is not ended in principle, 
even if ended in arms. The Great War is not one of 
physical strife, ammunition, and equipment: it is a 
great strife between materialism and principle. What 
the nations have failed to do with arms and battleships 
they are seeking to do with the mind and heart of man, 
and this has been the policy and philosophy from the 
beginning. The faith of the world is undermined by 
the emphasis placed upon mere materialism. There has 
been no penitence nor armistice along this line. Mate¬ 
rialism is subtle and keen in her determination to under¬ 
mine spiritual force in her attainment of the spiritual 
ideal. This is the constant and compelling argu¬ 
ment of materialism. In her logic, possession is 


RESPONSIBILITIES OF GREAT RICHES 119 

the aim of life; material accumulation surpassing 
value of attainment. Possessed by this insane and 
wicked avarice, nations may betray the world by false 
philosophy, unconscious of the destruction which has 
been brought upon themselves by its aim and use. This 
would disunite the nations in creating within mankind 
individually the selfish assertiveness of personal rights, 
and would lead men away one from another in an am¬ 
bition to regulate their own affairs and control their 
own possessions. 

We are not here to assert that the League of Nations 
will solve the problem, but we are here to assert that a 
compact of Nations, whether this or another, must re¬ 
late itself to our own problem as we consider the prob¬ 
lems of others, for nations as well as men must follow 
the rule “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” 

We are living in times of great necessity. The 
problems of men, cities and nations; the problems of 
capital and labour; the problems of railroad control, and 
all that goes with the related problems of transporta¬ 
tion and commerce, are entering into the thoughts and 
relationship of men as never before. Great men must 
see eye to eye, solving these great problems and dis¬ 
covering mutual benefit one for another. Whether the 
League of Nations, or a League of Nations, there need 
be no disregard of the great national rights of indi- 
dividual nations, no disregard of the great independent 
and related rights of all nations. There is no reason 
why a League of Nations should interfere with the 
Monroe Doctrine, or disregard the great primal prin¬ 
ciples of our Constitution. We must be loyal to the 
future and loyal to others, as we conserve the noble 


120 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

statutes of the past, and regard with responsibility our 
own national and individual trust. 

This even brings more clearly before us our subject. 
The perils of possession may rob us of the possession 
of the control of our time. Great Britain has learned 
many things which we have not as yet learned, just as 
we have learned many things in which we may instruct 
her. Among these lessons is that of the strong, able 
man giving his strength and intelligence to the nation. 
He may disregard his individual problems as he retires; 
but he must retire into the larger service, with all his 
gifts and abilities for the nation. 

I well remember, years ago, standing by an English 
lawn as several elderly men were bowling on the green. 
I remember one man, of marked personality and ap¬ 
parent age, with his silk cap and his grey beard, as he 
bowled his ball. His personality and bearing attracted 
me, and upon inquiring who he was, I learned that he 
was a great English shipbuilder, but was retired and 
was now giving his entire time to the interests of 
the nation. He bowled every day to keep himself in 
physical trim for the great responsibilities that were 
his. His possessions were not controlling him, but he 
was controlling his possessions. -He was giving him¬ 
self wholly to the nation in her great need and in her 
great problems. 

This is a lesson which we need to learn here in 
America, and which we are beginning to learn increas¬ 
ingly. The great enterprises of our own nation require 
the ablest thinking and the best minds of our well- 
trained, mature leaders. As men have given themselves 
to the great needs of the nation now in working with- 


RESPONSIBILITIES OF GREAT RICHES 121 


out reward for the government; as men have faced the 
great issues of the Liberty Loan, the Red Cross, and 
other national calls; as men have left office and home 
to take up the great responsibilities in our National 
City, so men must continue to face the needs of the 
nation in their own home cities and townships, and 
meet those problems heroically and with great sacrifice 
of time, giving themselves instead of buying the time 
of others to meet the great demands of the present. 

What if our great cities should find able, strong, 
inspiring leaders who would give themselves unspar¬ 
ingly to the great tasks, such as the mayoralty, instead 
of allowing such leading positions to become the mere 
wrangling centres for politicians with selfish interests? 
This must be the standard if we are to attain and over¬ 
come the peril of possession in the use of our time. 

Then there is the peril of controlling our thoughts, of 
allowing our possessions in business to control all our 
thinking. There are those who think of nothing but 
dollars and cents. They are wearied when prominent 
thoughts are brought to them other than those relating 
to their business responsibilities. They are so weary 
in mind that they fall asleep as they think of other 
subjects. The great problems of human relationship, 
the intercessions of men and organized activity do not 
seem to interest them; the whole problem of profit- 
sharing is not a vital issue with them. Thank God, it 
has become a vital issue to many! 

Instead of calling attention with the pessimist or 
anarchist to the condition that exists* let us remember 
how much has been done along this line; and is being 
done to-day. Hundreds and thousands of firms in this 


122 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

country are now engaged increasingly in profit-sharing, 
and those who are doing the most along this line are 
advertising themselves the least in such activity. In 
consecrating thought to others employed by them they 
are overcoming possession and utilising their power to 
overcome this common peril. 

Then there must be the heart control. We must give 
ourselves because we love the tasks which are before 
us. This is the spirit of modern benevolence. We can 
never love to give until we love those to whom we give, 
and the object for which we give. The rule of the Old 
Testament was that every man should give one-tenth 
of his income to the Lord. That legally belonged to 
the Lord, but there are those to-day who are disregard¬ 
ing this law of God and wondering why they should 
consider it. It is worthy of the consideration of all. A 
Christian man who does not give at least one-tenth of 
his income to the Lord’s work directly in one form or 
another, is not fair with God! God honours those who 
thus honour Him. Some men would give vast sums if 
this were true. I remember an instance when preach¬ 
ing on this subject years ago, a man responded, “Why, 
if I gave one-tenth of my income to the Lord, I would 
give tens of thousands of dollars to Him every year.” 
He spoke of it as an impossibility; still that man was 
practically robbing his own best nature by not doing so. 

Irrespective of taxation or the modern problems of 
income, it is nevertheless true that one-tenth of all that 
one earns belongs to God and should be given to him 
and to His work. Not the mere meeting of incidental 
bills in the house of God, but going into partnership 
with the Almighty and giving because one’s heart is 


RESPONSIBILITIES OF GREAT RICHES 123 

right before Him. If we love Him with all our hearts, 
this will not be an effort, and a legal amount of one- 
tenth of one’s income will be vastly increased as we 
augment it and give of our abundance to the work of 
the Lord. 

The Church of Jesus Christ has failed to realise 
through her individual membership the great responsi¬ 
bilities which are hers in preparing for the future; in 
making possible the work of the future by storing up 
the agencies of money and wisdom to meet the needs of 
the coming generation. The Church of Jesus Christ is 
a very central force, from which emanate the forces 
that work out the great benefits of city and nation.. 
In the church originate the purpose and plans to ameli¬ 
orate the sufferings of society; to relieve the oppressed; 
to save the sick and dying. Here start our great hospi¬ 
tals and those institutions which engender Christian 
training. Here start the great permanent philanthro¬ 
pies which bless society. This is the very centre from 
ydiich have emanated the great organisations and soci¬ 
eties which to-day stand for the betterment of man¬ 
kind. The church is the dynamo which drives the 
wheels of philanthropic force all over the world. We 
must sustain the centre; we must subscribe liberally and 
freely to that which is the heart and head of the whole 
matter. Jesus Christ discovered for us this truth and 
made the Church which bears his name the fosterer of 
His great ideals and purposes. We may have kept the 
commandments, but this one thing we yet lack, and this 
is the giving of our goods to feed the poor, and 
possessing our goods instead of being possessed by 
them. 


124 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

No wonder Prescott, the historian, asked when the 
body of the young miner was discovered at the bot¬ 
tom of the river with a belt of gold around him, “Did 
he possess his money, or did his money possess him?” 
Maltbie Davenport Babcock well wrote, “The only test 
of possession is use. A lost soul is one that God cannot 
use and one that cannot use God; trustless, prayerless, 
fruitless, loveless, is it not so far lost? Thus a man 
may be dead while he lives.” 

This man of our text went away sorrowful; we knew 
nothing of him or his future. Strong in personality 
and possession in life, he failed because he had great 
possessions which he did not use for God. Instead of 
vitalising his wealth, his wealth devitalised him. 

There is a joy side to it all. It is not what we have 
which we ever retain. It is that which we give which 
lives with us forever, and the great Eternal Life is the 
life spent in the consciousness of life and possession 
given away. Thus we are to spend ourselves and 
spend that which we have, that others may be blessed 
and that the world may be saved. 


XII 


UNITY IN SERVICE 

“The work is great and large and we are sepa¬ 
rated upon the wall, one far from another.” 

—Nehemiah 4:19. 

The theme this morning is Christian Unity, or Unity 
in Service. “The work is great and large and we are 
separated.” There is no need to discuss the question 
of unity and its efficiency in the general service of life. 
God did not make, as is so commonly stated to-day, the 
individual the unit in society. He did make the indi¬ 
vidual the unit in the state in so far as government had 
been organised, but he did not make the individual the 
unit of society. He made the family, the home, the 
unit in social relationship; and where family right has 
disintegrated, where the vows of the marriage altar 
have been looked upon lightly, invariably society has 
disintegrated. 

God made the home the unit of society, and He 
created a great common bond in human hearts, and a 
desire for that bond, which is manifested by all kinds 
of organisations and fraternities which emphasise the 
longing for brotherhood in human kind. There never 
has been an age, statisticians tell us, where this has 
gone to such an extreme as it has in our own genera¬ 
tion. There are Brotherhoods everywhere—fraternal 
125 


126 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

units in society of all kinds and of all character; men 
who work in the same employment, men who have the 
same policies and methods, men who have the same 
principle in their ideals and purposes, and men of 
the same kith and kin. Then there are men who have 
been trained in the same centre of education, men 
from the same location or the same commonwealth. It 
is said that no city in our land has so many State 
organisations, simply social in character, as our own 
city. There is the New England Society,-the Indiana 
Society, the Empire State Society, the Ohio Society, 
and many others, and recently many of the states of the 
.West as well as the East have organised also. 

We find this true not only socially, but politically; 
organisations exist within organisations. Not simply 
those societies which are known to the world, but 
perhaps even more difficult to deal with, and more 
dangerous at times, are the secret societies. JVe find 
that even religious organisations are not always in the 
open. The religious organisations which have done 
the greatest harm in the world have not been those 
which have been in the open, but organisations which 
have presented one thing to the public and have con¬ 
cealed their dominating motive from the public. This 
sort of organisation has been and always will be 
dangerous, until sincere democracy of government 
reaches the point when such subtility will not only be 
frowned upon, but will be wiped out by the force of the 
public opinion of the great body politic. If that day 
does not come, democracy will prove a failure, and we 
do not believe that it will prove a failure. 

JVe find everywhere that this social instinct, this 


UNITY IN SERVICE 127 

instinct of brotherhood and of co-operation, is related 
to the great principles of human life. Jesus Christ 
Himself inaugurated the religious associations of men 
and women which we see after all these years, and the 
people were taught to regard the organisation as of less 
importance than the great principle upon which it was 
founded. God had called the children of Israel a dis¬ 
tinct people. The people were not so much a people 
because of their complete organisation as because of the 
great underlying principle for which they stood. Israel 
was not strong as a nation because of her wisdom or 
greatness. She ofttimes was unknown among the 
nations save for her distinctive characters, such men 
as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. In the 
hearts of these young men there was a fixed principle, 
and no command of king or government could take 
from them that great distinctive principle of righteous¬ 
ness. We find in Daniel’s case that throughout the 
reigns of four kings he was master because of that 
principle. But when the Lord Jesus Christ organised 
that which has developed into the Christian Church of 
to-day, we find He started with a few men. He had a 
very small organisation, but it was related to Him. It 
was not because Peter loved Andrew, nor because John 
loved James. It was not because Matthew was pecu¬ 
liarly fond of Mark, John, Peter or Thomas. It was 
because these men had centred their affection and 
interest in the Individual Who had called them to follow 
Him. From that chosen few—that chosen company— 
the Church of Christ grew. I think it is unnecessary 
for us to emphasise further the necessity and value, and 
the expediency of unity. Back of any organisation or 


128 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

co-operating agency there must be a great fixed pur¬ 
pose, and that fixed purpose must be related, not only 
to the individual, but to the principle which that indi¬ 
vidual represents. Or, if you leave the individual out, 
it is the incarnate principle which holds and sustains 
the strength of the organisation. 

Our text this morning is related to a very interesting 
part of Israelitish history. Jerusalem was no longer 
flourishing. Artaxerxes, the great King of Persia, had 
control over a vast section of country and the entire 
land was tributary to him. Nehemiah was a man who 
had risen because of his wisdom and his efficiency. He 
was a man both of courage and purpose, and a man 
with courage and purpose is usually a man of efficiency 
and insight into the past and future. When Kipling 
wrote “Lest We Forget” he touched a chord not only 
in the British mind, but he touched a chord of responsi¬ 
bility in all minds as to the serious purposes and duties 
of life. The true student of our Lord Jesus Christ is a 
man who looks backward and looks forward, and who 
has individuality of purpose and concentration of aim; 
one who realises the blessings of the past and the power 
of the future. 

This Nehemiah was a man of foresight and power. 
He planned the campaign carefully. He left to Divine 
Providence that which every man should leave to 
Divine Providence—those elements beyond the indi¬ 
vidual’s control—instead of planning his entire course 
and then thinking that God should co-operate with that 
course, he sought divine guidance. 

It is one thing to say in your prayer, “Oh, God, 
answer my prayer in helping me work my plan,” and it 


UNITY IN SERVICE 129 

is quite another thing to pray, “Oh, God, teach me Thy 
will that I may plan according to Thy laws.” Many a 
man prays, “Help me the way I want help,” and if his 
prayer is not answered he believes that God does not 
answer prayer, while the whole spirit of Divine Truth 
suggests asking God for divine wisdom. 

Nehemiah sought that wisdom. He was the king’s 
cup-bearer. He went before the king. The king saw 
that he was saddened. He said, “My heart aches for 
Jerusalem. The walls are broken down, the gates are 
burned. There is no rejoicing in my city, the city of 
my fathers.” The king was interested and gave Nehe¬ 
miah what he asked for, a space of years as a furlough 
that he might go to his own land and work out his own 
enterprise. This man who had enriched himself with 
wisdom and elevated himself with faithful work was 
bold in faith and request. It was not the brazen bold¬ 
ness of the unworthy. It was that of the man who had 
a bold purpose because he had a high motive in his soul. 
This man with the high motive expressed to the king his 
desire, and the king sent him back to Jerusalem. 

Now when he went back he found a great need of 
organisation, and perhaps one of the first things we 
need to recognise is that the great power of unity is in 
this same proper organisation. The Tribes of Israel 
were organised quickly. Study the map of the Holy 
Land, and you will see that this man worked with 
great unity of action, as well as a clear understanding 
of the people in his organisation. God chose leaders 
who knew how to organise. Nehemiah organised his 
people. Read the third chapter of this book and*see 
how well they were organised. This book of thirteen 


130 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

chapters is a book we all ought to read. How many of 
us really know very much about Nehemiah ? The book 
is a classic. Just before the Old Testament loses itself 
in the four hundred years of silence, and about at the 
time Malachi wrote, this book of Nehemiah comes in. 

You will find in the third chapter that in the renew¬ 
ing of every part of the wall, the twelve tribes and 
leaders in Israel were to do every man his own work on 
his own part of the wall. Further, there was not only 
the consciousness of the need of organisation, but a 
realisation that organisation was not enough. We need 
this truth to-day. A great many splendid organisations 
have utterly failed because they were only well-organ¬ 
ised. This man knew that organisation was necessary, 
but he also knew that no organisation would carry itself 
without a great holy distinctive purpose back of that 
organisation. 

Some of the most lifeless things to-day are the most 
highly organised, but the difficulty is they are only 
organised. Suppose a man came into your office when 
you were the financial agent for a great institution, and 
tried enthusiastically to interest you in certain invest¬ 
ments from the standpoint of their organisation, repre¬ 
senting to you that they were of the most perfect and 
complete organisation? Would you take this invest¬ 
ment because he had a splendid organization ? I rather 
think you would say something to him about security! 
I think you would say something to him about that 
which stood back of his organisation. You would 
never think of taking stock in any work simply on 
account of its organisation. 

Now Nehemiah realised that there was something 


UNITY IN SERVICE 


131 


more than organisation needed, so he showed them how 
to serve and work and guard against their enemies at 
the same time. There are those in the world who 
actually disregard the enemy. They say, “Simply go 
ahead and do your work and build your part of the wall 
and all will be well.” But as long as there is human 
life and right effort there will also be enemies. There 
is no character-filled man who has not had them; no 
man of fidelity and force who will not have them, if 
his work amounts to anything. But why be afraid of 
them ? Be bold, be wise. Stand out with organisation 
and face your enemy, but be stronger than he is, stand¬ 
ing boldly and fearlessly for the principle and the work 
in which you believe. If your cause is right and just, 
and if you are Christian in spirit as well as in purpose 
(and that means much), you will find that your ene¬ 
mies will be relatively few, and you will find that those 
who are superficial in their opposition will disappear. 

This man had enemies and he knew well enough that 
the people would fail unless organised to meet the 
enemy. 

Now I am not here to controvert in any way, neither 
do I think the pulpit the place to discuss the questions of 
the day and hour which are not related to the great 
principles of spiritual life, but I want to say that there 
is one principle which is related to all the people, and 
related to the Church of Christ, and you and I must 
realise that God calls upon us to defend the weak and 
protect enterprises and principles which are His. 

Just a single illustration of what I mean. One of 
the most extreme pacifists I have ever heard (and 
personally I believe that in all great questions there is a 


132 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

golden mean that should be followed rather than the 
extreme position), a man who practically said that 
there could be no case where any individual or nation 
should ever retaliate or offer defence, but should always 
“turn the other cheek,” stepped out from giving an 
address of that sort and administered the most severe 
rebuke in anger to one who had overlooked a slight 
matter of duty. I mention the incident by way of 
illustration, for it is not fair to make use of an incident 
as argument. The man who did it utterly disregarded 
and misunderstood the principle, and was entirely un¬ 
conscious of it. 

What our Lord Jesus Christ said about “turning the 
other cheek’’ referred to the individual attitude of the 
man in his own heart toward a brother man. It did not 
refer to the protection of the weak, nor to the disregard 
of those who are under our care. 

Is there a parent in all this land who would allow his 
child to step out on to the streets of this great city of 
Chicago, and let that child suffer personal wrong at the 
hands of some wicked man, because he interpreted the 
New Testament as telling him that he should not pro¬ 
tect against such a wrong? What is the child’s father 
for ? What is the state for ? 

Now mark you, as long as sin is in this world of ours 
and as long as sin rules in the life of man or nation, 
there will be warfare, for sin means warfare. In so far 
as righteousness protects itself and others, it stands for 
principle and stands for right, and in so far as it is 
God-born. 

Do you suppose that you and I have any right to say 
that our heroic ancestors who died to protect the great 


UNITY IN SERVICE 133 

principle that “taxation without representation” was 
wrong, that God did not lead them, and that they were 
not righteous and just? 

Let us be sane and sensible about this thing, and let 
us realise that peace can only exist where right exists. 
There is something worse than war, and that is sin, and 
as long as sin exists war will result. When this world 
is Christ-like, the world will be at peace, and not until 
then. When sin rules in the lives of men, sin will fight 
against right, and the way to defend against war is to 
slay sin. 

Men and women, let us put this correctly before us. 
We stand to-day for Him. Let us make our organisa¬ 
tion strong in service and living works. Let us realise 
that as we build the walls of Jerusalem, our swords are 
to be at our sides, with one hand to build and construct, 
and with the other hand to guard and keep that which 
is sacred and right, and God’s sword is the “Sword of 
the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” Men will fight 
against it. They always have and they always will. 
Let us remember that Nehemiah, in his co-operative 
leadership, was a man who thrilled these people with 
the thought of protective service for the sake of con¬ 
structive enterprise. Never warfare for the sake of 
warfare, but the walls of Jerusalem must be built. The 
timbers that come from the mountains, from the great 
trees which have grown year by year until their splen¬ 
did trunks reach up towards the starry heavens, must be 
made fit for the purpose. They must be squared and 
hewn into form for the great doors and gates that are 
to make the walls of Jerusalem secure. 

But mark you, those gates could not be put together 


134 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

and the walls reconstructed without opposition. There 
were others without, ready to break down those gates 
and prevent the children of Israel from carrying on the 
reconstruction. There are always enemies. 

Can we say that in a city like ours there is no sin* 
no place for contention and warfare, when over 
twelve million dollars in a single year came into the 
treasury of wicked men and women because of com¬ 
mercialised vice? When the sin of this city can so 
protect and surround itself that men are forced to 
admit such facts; when statistics are taken we realize 
great wrongs that menace the lives of our boys and 
girls, our sons and daughters, because men are willing 
to ruin their lives, have we not the duty to fight? Is 
there not a time when these men become the enemies of 
God and when, as Nehemiah did, we must labor with 
our hands and work with the sword at our side? You 
call it the work of police. Well, call it what you may, 
it means opposition. 

You will notice another great characteristic of this 
scheme of co-operation, namely, that the one who 
sounded the bugle stood by his side and was with 
Nehemiah. “We are separated and the work is large.” 
They had to be separated, but when they heard the 
sound of the trumpet they came nigh and worked 
together. 

There is a great truth here which we must not over¬ 
look. The Church is a union for worship in the house 
of Almighty God. Sometimes men, in the heat of 
discussion or the carelessness of self-excuse, say, 
“What is the use of attending divine worship?” What 
is the use? Suppose the children of your home grew up 


UNITY IN SERVICE 135 

without church attendance and church interest? Sup¬ 
pose your children see no interest on your part? Sup¬ 
pose they become imbued with the idea, as some say, 
that “Sunday is a day for rest and recreation/’ and sup¬ 
pose you absent yourself regularly from the House of 
God, and let any pleasure, no matter how trivial, sepa¬ 
rate you from attendance at divine worship? You can 
stand it, you say. You may have had an early training 
which you have disregarded. But what about your 
children? Let thirty years go by, and think of sixty 
years, and your children’s children. What about the 
grandchildren? What religious principles will they 
have within their souls? I think of the father who 
stood before his pastor and said, “I have never been 
interested in those things.” Sometimes he says: “As 
a child I had too much of it.” I don’t believe that. I 
would not have that which is mine to-day, if it had not 
been for the faithfulness and guardianship which led 
and kept me where I ought to be when I did not want 
to be where I was. What of your children’s children 
who are facing, or will face, the serious problems of 
life, and the reality of divine things if they know noth¬ 
ing about assembling themselves together on God’s day 
in God’s house ? There is a basic principle here. 

Men are selfish and self-interested, and that is the 
curse to-day. It is not so much agnosticism or infi¬ 
delity as it is selfishness. 

How well I remember an old college professor who 
used to say, “Young men, when you spell sin s-i-n, 
you are wrong; you should spell sin s-e-l-f,” and I 
think he was right. The sin of to-day is selfishness. 
You say, “I want to spend my time on the golf links,” 


136 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

or “I want to spend my time as I choose.” I am not 
condemning the golf links; I am not condemning your 
own wishes. You can walk with your children on 
Sunday, as on any other day, and would to God more 
fathers took the time to do that, instead of doing other 
things, but, what I want to say is, that the great prin¬ 
ciple at stake is that of your allowing yourselves to do 
the things which take you from the House of God, and 
from the worship of God’s Holy Name on His day, and 
the influence of this upon your children. 

What are your grandchildren going to do if they 
know nothing of these things from their parents? It 
is not so much what men do, but what God does in 
men, when they assemble themselves together to honour 
and worship Him. We face it all in one sentence. Are 
we building the walls of Jerusalem? ‘‘The work is 
great, and we are separated.” 


XIII 


THE HUMILITY OF THE SOUL 

“He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” 

—Luke 18:14. 

Our text is in the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of 
Luke, the fourteenth verse : 

“For every one that exalteth himself shall be hum¬ 
bled, but he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” 
“He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” 

One of the most remarkable sentences which St. 
Augustine ever used touches the very centre of our 
thought this morning: The Humility of the Soul. St. 
Augustine said: “The sufficiency of my merit is to 
know that my merit is not sufficient.” It touches di¬ 
rectly the thought before us: The Humility of the Soul. 
“He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” 

Now there is a very marked false humility which is 
seen in humanity at times. The human element of 
thought is such that when it centres upon itself it be¬ 
comes extremely introspective, and ofttimes destroys 
its own purpose. There is a humility which utterly 
fails to be humble because it is self-conscious and 
becomes self-advertised. It is abhorent when we see it 
in the vivid picturing of Charles Dickens who paints 
for us the despicable character of Uriah Heep, an 
extreme of this type. He wishes to impress his charac¬ 
ters and what they represent upon the mind, and that 
137 


138 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

is why they are so extreme. That is why they are 
Dickens’ characters. They were meant to be extreme. 

That very character, despicable as he is, is an empha¬ 
sis, an underscoring of the very thing which we would 
use in preface this morning. Do not mistake for hu¬ 
mility that which pretends to be humility, for it then 
and there ceases to be humility. Do not practise ex¬ 
cessive humility. One of our simplest writers of olden 
time was John Todd. Those who read John Todd 
were sensible, even if they were extreme; and even 
if sometimes they leaned backwards in their righteous¬ 
ness, when they stooped they stooped in true humility. 
With his blunt frankness—which, as some have said, 
was useful even in his day—John Todd said, as he 
shook his very fist in the faces of men who pretended 
to be religious: “Do not practice excessive humility. 
If you do, you will destroy your power to be humble.” 

We do not this morning wish to interpret the words 
of our Saviour in words of professionalism. They 
cease to be real when they are lowered to a mere pro¬ 
fessionalism. On the other hand, there is a danger of 
allowing professionalism, in our fear lest it become 
self-advertised, to rob us of the genuine expression 
of our own manly selves and the showing of our real 
selves. There are people who err in this very interpre¬ 
tation of a great and serious truth. They fail to gain 
the blessing of a life of true humility because they are 
afraid that other people will think that they are aiming 
to be humble. They fail to gain the blessing of a 
spiritual life because they constantly fear that people 
will think they are hypocrites in aiming to show as 
their own that which they do not actually possess. 


THE HUMILITY OF THE SOUL 139 

And just here we ought to realise that we err just 
as much if we fail to give expression to that which we 
really are, as if we pretend to be that which we really 
are not. In other words, if we are not true to our best 
selves, we fail to give genuine and true expression to 
that which we really are. Again if we fear that some 
people will think that we are trying to be that which we 
really are not, we err just as much as though we pre¬ 
tend to have that which we actually do not possess. 
There is that in the human heart which causes man to 
err in his fear of over-professionalism, so that he does 
not give himself heartily to that which he really en¬ 
dorses and that which he really believes. 

The genuine humble life is the life that exercises 
humility without defining its terms, without advertising 
itself, without saying: “I am humbler than thou”; 
without saying (in religious phraseology) either in look 
or in word: “I am holier than thou.” Holy people do 
not have to be self-advertised, and holy people who 
advertise themselves as holy cease to be holy. The 
life that is real; the life that rings with sincerity; the 
life that is known by that which it really is—such a life 
is understood by the age in which it lives as true and 
humble. 

And still, why should we not wear the uniform that 
identifies the spiritual nature? True, the uniform is 
not always necessary. In citizens’ clothes soldiers may 
live and work when not engaged in the strife of arms, 
but in the day of struggle the uniform is there! The 
uniform is worn at its proper and right time. But 
there is that which stamps the individual no matter 
what his cloak or what his clothing may be, even in 


140 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

time of freedom from warfare. He may not be able 
to stand as erect as he stood upon the battlefield or upon 
the drill-room floor. He may be lowered in illness; he 
may be crippled by accident; he may be overcome by 
physical limitation, but people turn to him and speak to 
him in his official rank with honour and with pride, not 
because he is crippled and out of form, but because his 
real self is the leader, is the captain, is the general! 
He is known by what he is and what he has been, and 
his life has stood the test in time of demand. 

You and I may be subject to conditions which are 
entirely separate from the ordinary forms of religious 
worship. There are tens of thousands of youth to-day 
who cannot go inside of a church, whose hearts are 
there. There are hundreds of thousands of men and 
women whose very churches have been destroyed, and 
who, if they worship God, are worshipping God under 
the great canopy of heaven, and in that sanctuary 
which is the great outdoors, but their hearts are crying 
out to God and their hearts are worshipping. War has 
robbed them of the outward sanctuary. 

How different such a life and such a purpose from 
the life of the one who in the happiness and blessing of 
Christian surroundings is entirely neglectful of his 
privilege and opportunity! He walks by a score of 
churches, perchance, in a month’s time without thinking 
of God, without knowing anything in his soul of the 
worship of God. 

Now it is not our purpose this morning to compare 
the uneventful life of the unbeliever with the eventful 
life of the believer. More and more the uneventful life 
of the unbeliever grows into a mere commonplace which 


THE HUMILITY OF THE SOUL 141 

soon disintegrates into a nebulous condition in which 
the human heart has no power to reinstate itself in 
vital religious thinking. The sad state of the non¬ 
religious mind is, that instead of becoming like the 
great systems of the starry heavens, more and more 
transforming their nebulous condition into a perfect 
centre and system he grows more chaotic in his think¬ 
ing and opinions. The mind that is unassociated 
with God, the uneventful life of the unbeliever, be¬ 
comes more and more nebulous, until at last the man 
in his sixties or seventies, or sometimes before that, 
says: “There is nothing in spiritual interpretations for 
me. I have no pleasure in them.” 

It is not our desire to trace this morning the develop¬ 
ment from or to the great heart of God, as revealed 
in Christ, but simply to allude to it, to show that the 
humble mind is the mind that first of all has the power 
to know God. 

The man who is really ignorant is the man who feels 
himself so sufficiently intelligent that he does not need 
mental training. You find him everywhere. “I do 
not need to think or study. I know what I know. I 
understand the associations of life.” In the commercial 
world he ceases to be a force. 

Take for instance a man who is compelled, because 
of the need of the great energies of leadership, to 
resort to times of privacy in his own business or pro¬ 
fessional life, to shield his hours of thought or study. 
He must be accessible at the right time, and save 
himself for administrative power instead of mere exec¬ 
utive power. He realises that a man ceases to be a 
force in the community when he is not producing new 


142 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

thought as the result of his own enterprise of thought 
and his own personal product in mental leadership. 
And you will find before great groups, whether finan¬ 
cial bodies, economic associations, national committees, 
or bodies engaged in handling international issues, 
that the man who is constantly producing as the re¬ 
sult of his own mental training and power is essential 
to leadership! He ceases to be a power when he 
lives upon his reputation. He must constantly be doing 
the necessary thing in a constructive way. The greater 
his mental power, the more he will exercise power. 

Now that man’s power is not simply in his ability to 
produce, but in the consciousness that his experience 
and ability have led him to the place where he knows 
the necessity of clear understanding. He thinks more 
constructively and consecutively into the things which 
are to be done. Hence he is a man of intelligent force. 
Not so the commonplace makeshift, leading a life that 
goes around in a little circle. He will say: ‘‘What is 
the use of studying? I know it all. I have learned it. 
I understand it. Do I not influence my clerks and lead 
others?” Yes, but he has gone as high as he ever will 
go, and he probably will begin to go lower, for there is 
no standing still. He must either go higher or lower. 

It takes the man who sees the insufficiency of his 
knowledge, who recognises his inability and his limita¬ 
tions, and endeavours to increase his knowledge and his 
ability. Go back to the sentence of St. Augustine, “The 
sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not 
sufficient.” Hence a man is really a scholar and a 
student (and there is a difference in the words), if he 
recognises increasingly the insufficiency of his own 


THE HUMILITY OF THE SOUL 143 

merit and desires to acquire greater merit, and works 
to give the influence of that merit to others. 

The same thing is true of righteousness. When you 
think you are righteous, you are not righteous. When 
we think we have been acquiring in righteousness 
when we have not, we begin to recognise the fact that 
we are retrograding instead of advancing. 

Do I then always bow in humility before every fel¬ 
low-man and say I am nothing? Do I go back to the 
phraseology of the old time hymnology and sing that I 
am a worm and worthless and grovelling on the earth ? 
Not at all. That was a genuine expression, but it was 
a misconception. We do not desire to criticise it in an 
unwholesome or unkindly spirit. It grew out of a 
condition of thought that existed. 

God does not desire us to grovel on the earth and 
crawl before men as those who were worms, and say: 
“There is no chance for us because sin has depleted 
our lives and ruined our possibilities and we have no 
place nor home.” 

Sin has been and is in every life; sin has been and is 
in every nation, and sin is the great vital reality that 
saps the life blood, that eats away the vitals of life. 
Such is sin. But sin is to be faced by manly courage, 
and sin is to be faced by an open frankness, and that 
force is the cross of Christ, and that frankness is the 
message of the One who lived and said: “He that 
humbleth himself shall be exalted.” 

Peter drew his sword and smote off the ear of the 
one who would take the Saviour captive, but Christ 
said: “Put up the sword into the sheath.” But this 
same Saviour who would not use nor permit to be 


144 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

used this physical means for saving Him from being 
taken captive, had the physical courage as well as 
the moral courage, to let them nail His hands and feet 
to the cross; to let them press that crown of thorns 
down upon His head until the blood dropped down 
upon his face, and He it was Who suffered the agony 
of the cross. 

Sin is to be faced by the great moral standard which 
is born of the Saviour who says: “Humble thyself 
before God.” 

Now we must briefly sum up this truth in an 
emphasis which may mean eternal life to us all. 
Moments come and go quickly. A few hours, a few 
days, a few weeks, a few years, and we will be in the 
great hereafter of life. The hereafter-life means for 
us eternity. Immortality is born in us. We are born 
into great truths suddenly; we develop those great 
truths as the years progress. They have their infinite 
development in what Christ calls Eternity. Such is the 
immortality of the soul. 

What then is this great truth that is ours, which we 
must grasp at this time ? That great preacher, Flavel, 
said: “They that know God will be humble; they that 
know themselves cannot be proud.” “I believe,” said 
Ruskin, “that the first test of a truly great man is his 
humility.” In that one sentence: “They that know 
God will be humble; they that know themselves cannot 
be proud—” there is the relationship of your own 
heart to God; the relationship of your life to your 
fellowmen—humility toward God, serving God in 
serving humanity. The great truth growing out of this 


THE HUMILITY OF THE SOUL 145 

may be ours to-day. It is this: “Man believeth unto 
righteousness with the heart,” and serve with the life. 

Three weeks ago Sunday evening we took up this 
subject and it came with newness of life and 'force to 
us all. It is our concluding thought this morning: 
“With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” 
Such is the expression of the humble life. The life 
that believes has love at its centre, and that love 
dominates day by day. Are you too proud to admit 
it? Be careful! Mental pride has kept many a man 
from heart-power. You say with the sophists of old 
who with their logic and keenness of intellect paved 
the way for the philosophers of their time, and for 
the philosophies of modern philosophers— “Let me, 
with intellect and thought mark out the way which 
will lead to the only true course of life which I can 
follow intelligently.” But remember that the great 
God says: “With the heart man believeth unto right¬ 
eousness.” 

Show me the book of etiquette that can show men 
and women how to fall in love; that can show men and 
women whom to choose as the personalities with whom 
they would link their lives throughout this life; a 
standard of selection which will make “The Cotter’s 
Saturday Night” possible. Show me any text book of 
mental science that can give to you and to me that train¬ 
ing of the mind that will make a father so close to a son 
as to lead that son from wayward paths by intel¬ 
lectual force and power. Show me a single standard of 
logic or rhetoric which trains this human mind of ours, 
not only to know sin, but to overcome sin because of 
its knowledge of sin. Some of the most intellectual 


146 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

nations of the world have been lost in the oblivion of 
wickedness, and oblivion and wickedness go together. 
The nation that could create most remarkable art, 
the nation that gave standardisation of force as no 
other nation, that built the great highways which are 
great arteries of transportation in Europe even to 
this day, those nations with art and force went down 
in moral decay to such an extent that your child and 
mine, in many an instance, must use expurgated 
editions of their literature. 

Knowledge sufficient! No, knowledge was not suffi¬ 
cient, because knowledge standardised merely on the 
basis of logical and rational interpretation was not related 
to the great divine meaning of life and righteousness. 

“With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” 
And, my friends, there is a relation here. “He that 
humbleth himself shall be exalted.” Did we not read 
this morning that except as we become as little children 
we cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven? Do 
you believe it? The world says to-day exactly the 
same as it said in Christ's day: “Push the children 
away. This is a man’s day, and a woman’s day. This 
is the time and opportunity for adult minds and adult 
reasoning to solve life’s problems.” But the Saviour 
said: “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” Oh, 
can you see that picture now, when the dear Saviour of 
mankind puts His hand upon the head of a little child 
and looks into the face of that little six-year-old! Ah, 
there is love and there is response there! And the 
Saviour said: “Suffer the little children to come unto 
me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom 
of God.” 


THE HUMILITY OF THE SOUL 147 

My friends, if we want to know God, we must 
believe with our hearts. We must become as little 
children. Stop in the pride of your intellect which 
says: “Solve for me every problem before I admit 
Christ as my Saviour,” and repeat: “Except ye be 
converted,” and change the pride of your life to that 
of true humility or you cannot know God. But if we 
will stand with those little children and look into the 
face of the Saviour, we, too, will find our place and our 
opportunity. We will admit and confess the Saviour, 
not by an intellectual standard, but by consecrating our 
intellectuality and our minds and our hearts to the 
Saviour of men. We will know the humility of the 
Kingdom of God. And the prophesy of the hour will 
be, “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” 


XIV 


THE CONVICTION OF SIN 

“And when He is come, He will reprove the world 
of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of 
sin, because they believe not on Me.”— John 16:8, 9. 

There has always been in the world a difference of 
view as to the meaning of sin, the consequence of sin, 
and the tremendous importance of sin. There can be 
no vital religion without a belief in and a consciousness 
of the immensity of sin. There may be a philosophy of 
religion; there never can be a religion. Sin, the great 
controlling force of the human heart, must be realised, 
for sin’s need brought a Saviour into the world. 

The standard of our Christian faith is not based 
upon the conception of an ideal, but on the reality of a 
great fact. It is not the Christmas Season heralded by 
the Christmas bell and the birth of our Saviour, but the 
solemn consciousness of the Cross; 

“There was a green hill far away, 

Without the city wall, 

Where the dear Lord was crucified, 

Who died to save us all.” 

This is the great central truth of the religion of 
Jesus Christ. Without it men cannot claim His Deity; 
without it, He was simply a beautiful life in a world 
that needed an example. 


148 


149 


THE CONVICTION OF SIN 

The Christian’s faith then centres around the Cross. 
The Cross has no meaning without the need of it. Men 
do not die voluntarily because they love to die. Jesus 
of Nazareth who saved others, and to whom that 
great slur was uttered, “Himself He cannot save!” 
did not die to be a great picture in history, nor to be 
the great catastrophe of the ages—not at all. He died 
to save men from their sins. “Behold the Lamb of 
God who taketh away the sin of the world.” He was 
heralded with those great words—“Thou shalt call His 
name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their 
sins.” 

The central truth of the Christian faith, irrespective 
of creed, irrespective of what we term denomination, is 
that figure of the Cross on which the Saviour of men 
died. 

The need of salvation brings us to the consciousness 
of sin; the realisation of His place. 

The age is suffering from the lack of strong truth. 
Do you think it is an easy religion that you want ? Do 
you think it is a complacent satisfaction of the soul 
that rests you when you put your head upon the pillow 
at night, and comforts without a struggle against the 
forces of wrong? The religion of Jesus Christ has 
never been a complacent religion. It has never been a 
compromising religion, saying, “Never mind if you do 
this, or never mind if you do that; it is all right, the 
Lord is merciful; His name is Love, nothing else.” 
No! No! The religion which is a human-made inter¬ 
pretation will starve as it seeks to nourish itself. 

The religion of Jesus Christ is strong and vital and 
sure. It means contest; it means a victory which never 


150 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

is gained save as a soul struggles to attain. It puts that 
iron into the blood which makes strength; it gives 
grey-matter to the brain; it gives to the soul that great 
strength which comes in the consciousness that it has 
conquered. 

But sin, after all, seems very victorious in our day 
as it has in all generations. You ask what is the sin 
that will always separate me from God? I do not 
know, save as the Scripture makes it evident that there 
is a sin against the Holy Ghost. The investigation of 
it has driven more men and women to crazed minds 
than any other religious truth, but it is evident in 
Scripture that the sin that you and I must fear is the 
sin of unbelief. Remember the text—“And when He 
is come, He will convict the world of sin, and of right¬ 
eousness, and of judgment (of sin), because they be¬ 
lieve not on Me.” - 

But you cannot arbitrarily force a man to believe. 
No, of course you cannot. But suppose you have not 
given your own soul the opportunity of belief. Sup¬ 
pose you have deceived your own inclination by saying, 
I will fight against the thing which I cannot argue 
through, and the conclusion which I cannot fully under¬ 
stand. There never has been an invention worth its 
name that was not filled with doubt, unbelief and dis¬ 
belief. In life we search and investigate and experi¬ 
ment. Have we any idea of experimental religion in 
our faith? 

There is not a great saving truth in the medical 
world to-day that has not been the result of careful and 
searching investigation. Sometimes by a mere accident 
men have fallen upon a circumstance or condition which 


THE CONVICTION OF SIN 151 

has helped reveal a truth, and belief has carried it 
through. 

Belief, confidence, is not the result of astounding 
facts presented to the world, but the result of experi¬ 
ence—experimenting and believing have resulted. 

Have you given your conscience a chance ? The sad¬ 
ness of all this in our age is that so many people do not 
care. So many youths, trained splendidly in intellect, 
backed by the inheritance of godly generations, are 
totally indifferent to this whole question. They laugh 
(they do not sneer) in the listlessness of the moment 
and say, “What’s the use?” for their real interest is in 
the things of the hour, of the day; the opportunities 
of life instead of the purposes of life; the pleasures of 
life instead of the responsibilities of life. And if we 
are older, we excuse them by saying, “they are young; 
they will come to the experience in time.” Yes, but 
what if they are wrong? The strong blows and forces 
of life have always been prefaced by the strength of 
youth. 

Our last war was a war of young men, and they 
were boys who took up their weapons and marched 
beside their comrades. They had their moments of 
carelessness; they showed that they were filled with life 
and promise, but oh, in those hearts and lives there was 
something deeper than the mere thrill of the moment; 
something greater than the ambition of the hour; than 
the inspiration of the day! Yet, it was there! It is 
there in a latent state now. The men and women who 
came to these shores two hundred or three hundred 
years ago did not come to make a commercial nation; 
they did not come in order that they might have places 


152 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

where they could trade freely. Those men and women 
came to these shores because they said, ‘The greatest 
thing in all this world is to have a conscience, and to 
live up to it! And any nation that deprives us of the 
worship of Almighty God as our consciences dictate, 
cannot hold our loyalty.” Virginia, the Carolinas, 
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, all 
through—from Holland, Scotland, England, or Ireland, 
they came with that purpose of worshipping God and 
keeping their consciences clear and strong, for they had 
faith and believed. 

The inheritance of our land and of every Christian 
nation worthy of the name is conviction; they believed, 
and if they made a law, they kept that law, and if that 
law was wrong, they changed that law, but they did not 
break it. 

I am not here to say (save by way of illustration) 
what your attitude may be towards the Eighteenth 
Amendment, but I do want to say: if you are willing 

break the Eighteenth Amendment because you do 
not believe in it, you are not a true citizen of the United 
States. Change it, if it is your conviction, and if the 
majority have that conviction (I do not believe they 
have), but do not break it, and the man who breaks 
avowedly is disloyal to his nation. He is breaking a 
law which his nation has made. 

In the city of New York, within the past few weeks, 
a man arose at a banquet where liquor was served. He 
was known to be a man of the world, but a man of 
intrinsic worth. He had not been an abstainer, he 
was a man of large influence. When the liquor was 
passed, that man said, “Not one drop. You men know 


THE CONVICTION OF SIN 153 

that I drink moderately, but our nation has stamped its 
name upon a law, and you know as well as I know that 
the cause of this action was largely economic rather 
than religious” (and that is true; we must be fair). 
“You know that this country has made a law, and I 
shall not break it,” and he turned his glass down. 

He was right, and if you purchase drink—I care 
not what your name may be—you are wrong. Change 
the law, if you will, but do not break the law, and do 
not laugh at a great nation that is based upon a majority 
rule. You say representatives passed this law, but who 
are the representatives, if they do not represent the 
people? The fair vote of the people passed it. 

This is only an illustration, but I want to vitalise 
something in language which some of you will under¬ 
stand. 

The power of law is in the keeping of law. 

Now, unbelief in a thing may be the most dangerous 
foe of truth. Democracy has not yet sufficiently proved 
itself to say that it is the best government of the world* 
You say, “Do not be unpatriotic.” I do not intend to 
be, but Democracy has not been living long enough yet 
to prove to the world that it is God’s ultimate ideal of 
government. I believe it will, and you believe it will, 
but there are the rocks; there is the great hissing shoal 
that has wrecked many a nation. If Democracy is not 
loyal to law, Democracy cannot live, and if law does not 
govern great cities, Democracy is doomed, because the 
age in which we live is the age of great cities. I be¬ 
lieve as you do that God honours and will honour our 
representative form of government, but it depends upon 
this question—are we willing to keep law? Do we 


154 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

believe that sin is justified? The same great truth 
applies to government which must be applied to the 
soul. 

“The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” “Be sure your 
sin will find you out.” The great sure fact of the con¬ 
viction of sin must begin with the individual in his 
own soul, and must go through him to government. 

I do not often refer to a novel, but if you have not 
read “The Master of Man” by Hall Caine, read it. It 
is a novel which will go down in history in my private 
judgment. It has been published in eight languages 
now; it will probably be published in more. It goes to 
the very root of the thing we are talking about this 
morning. It is the story of the conviction of sin in a 
soul, whose splendid victory over surroundings and self 
is revealed that the hero may live with a clear con¬ 
science. 

Victor Stowell always will stand out in the history 
of fiction and Fenella Stanley will always be a character 
in the ideal of womanhood, and why? Because that 
man and that woman saw that nothing was worth while 
so much as that clear conscience that could look the soul 
in the eye. It was the power of the conviction of sin. 

Now, men and women, we as Christian people to-day 
are overlooking some of the great primaries and con¬ 
sidering the secondaries. If your body is not well and 
strong and developing vigorously, your mind cannot 
do its best work; your heart cannot act with all the free 
course it should. We may overcome these conditions, 
but the body of our religious thinking to-day is ill in a 
great many instances, and we are substituting the deli¬ 
cacies and niceties for the actual food which gives the 


155 


THE CONVICTION OF SIN 

red blood to the veins and muscles, and strength and 
acuteness to the brain. We are making secondary 
things primary and we are relegating primary things 
to the rear. 

What is your attitude to God? Are you a sinner, or 
not? Do you need forgiveness, or not? Has the 
Cross of Christ come into your life? Are you a for¬ 
given child of God because you are a saved sinner? 

Listen then to such words as these: “The wrath of 
God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and 
unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in un¬ 
righteousness.” You will never be judged on the same 
basis as the black man in Central Africa who has never 
heard the Gospel message. God will deal with him, 
but unto us “who hold the truth in unrighteousness,” 
the wrath of heaven is revealed. 

The great saints of God stopped not at the promises 
of God through unbelief, but were strong in the faith. 

“Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an 
evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living 
God.” 

“Without faith it is impossible to please Him.” 

“Unto you therefore which believe He is precious.” 

“He that believeth on the Son of God hath the wit¬ 
ness in himself.” 

“And straightway the father” of that poor child who 
had gone out in sickness and death, cried out and said 
with tears, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” 

The vast old world of which we are so vital a part 
is suffering just now; suffering with perplexity more 
than with pain. The pain was felt a few years ago. It 
is suffering with an anguish of soul rather than a great 


156 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

pain of body; suffering with anxiety and doubt. What 
does she need? 

Yes, the answer is heard in the rising young nation 
of Czecho Slovakia; in the strange outcry from Hun¬ 
gary; in the confusion of Poland; in the chaos of 
Russia; in the lack of credit in Germany; in the help¬ 
lessness of the Near East; in the perplexing labour 
problems of England and we may add America—what 
does the old world need ? 

Oh, men and women, it needs a sense of the convic¬ 
tion of sin and of a return to God, and sin can never be 
felt in the multitude, but in the individual heart. 

When those forefathers came to New York and to 
Connecticut and to Maryland and to the other colonies 
in this country, what did they come for ? They came 
that as individuals they might face the problems of 
their religious life. Rome and often the established 
Church said, “No, if you are baptized; if you are re¬ 
ceived by us; if you go through the form, it is enough— 
leave it to the State, for the State and the Church are 
one.” No, not at all! It was the Presbyterians who 
fought this through, shoulder to shoulder, with our 
Congregational friends, and with the Baptists, and The 
Friends and others. Then it was that great strong men 
stood out and said, “No, we believe that the individual 
soul must answer for itself. No king, nor sovereign; 
no state nor national church can say what I must do, 
but as a soul before God I am under the conviction of 
sin, personally. I must bow before my God and gain 
the power of my own life. 

The government of United States was based upon 
that policy. We have not a sovereign nation. We 


THE CONVICTION OF SIN 157 

have a nation whose constitution believes in the indi¬ 
vidual conscience, and the responsibility of every citizen, 
and as we are loyal to our nation’s principles and truth, 
let us be loyal to our God. 

My brother, are you a sinner or not? If you are a 
sinner you need forgiveness, and there is only one 
way: “God so loved the world that He gave His only 
begotten Son that whosoever helieveth in Him should 
not perish but have everlasting life.” 

For the sake of Christ; for the sake of this old 
world, and for the sake of your own soul, I plead with 
you to respond to the conviction of your sin, and seek 
the Saviour of mankind* 


XV 


FAITH REWARDED 

“Then touched He their eyes, saying, ‘According to 
your faith be it unto you/ ” — Matthew 9129. 

Our subject this morning is “Faith and Its Reward.” 
The illustration of the two blind men restored to sight 
is a clear illustration of faith rewarded. “According 
to your faith be it unto you.” It was so with the ruler, 
the account of which is narrated in the same chapter 
which we read this morning. He said, “My daughter 
is now dead, but lay thy hand upon her and she shall 
live.” It was also true of the woman who touched 
Him in the throng, whose ailment had gone on through 
the years. Christ said, “Thy Faith hath saved thee.” 

The profession of faith is not so much needed as the 
possession of faith, and the possession of faith leads to 
the true profession of faith. It is not a hope, but a 
belief. 

“Just as I am! Thou wilt receive. 

Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve; 

Because Thy promise I believe 

Faith is not a something unseen and unknown; an 
incoherent, unpossessable will-o-the-wisp, but an active 
actual power. Faith is a possession, faith is that which 
we seek and that which we attain. “According to your 
faith be it unto you.” 


158 


FAITH REWARDED 


159 


“Abraham believed God and it was accounted unto 
him for righteousness.” “All things are possible to 
him that bdieveth .” “Thou wilt keep him in perfect 
peace whose mind is stayed on Thee because he trusteth 
in Thee.” 

Let us first consider then that faith does not exclude 
the use of means, but it does not stop with them. The 
rulers sought Christ; the woman touched Christ; the 
blind men went into the house following Christ after 
they had made their plea. It was literally true, “Ac¬ 
cording to your faith be it unto you.” “Believest thou 
that I can do this?” And the answer was that they 
believed. 

Means were utilised; they accepted faith; this wa& 
the trail which pointed the entrance into God's great un¬ 
known forest of reserve. Faith went over that trail, 
but there was a trail; there was a place to go; there was 
a way to walk. There is a great danger in disregarding 
this trail. Christ said, “I am the door; By me if any 
man enter in.” Christ also said, “Come unto me.” 
The effort must be made. 

Means were emphasised, and the disregard of means 
in the exercise of faith is dangerous. The Lord “made 
spittle and anointed the eyes” of another who was 
blind; the Lord “touched the eyes”; God gave Moses a 
rod with which to exercise his command. The best of 
medical skill should be accompanied by faith. It is 
unscriptural to disregard the means which God has pro¬ 
vided, and instead of lessening faith, they increase faith. 

We are in great danger in much of our religious in¬ 
terpretation, as well as in much of the philosophic 


160 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 
teaching called religion to-day, in disregarding this 
sure fact. 

It is time that the pulpit of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
without fear and without compromises, spoke forth the 
great words of Divine Truth in all this question of 
Divine Healing, for there is much that is called re¬ 
ligion, and much within the Church that is called 
religious that is unscriptural. 

The “anointing with oil” was not simply a known 
matter of faith, for oil was about the only means known 
in the days of Christ which physicians used for cleans¬ 
ing qualities, and there was a material benefit in that 
anointing of oil, outside and inside. It was the best 
means that was known. The disregard of the best that 
God has given is unscriptural and fails in the great 
standard of Divine Truth, which Jesus Christ, Himself, 
exercised and which He taught. 

The disregard of means when provided is not only 
unscriptural, but is presumptuous, and leads to fanatical 
error. It is as foolish as an attempted aeroplane with¬ 
out an engine. 

Theodore Cuyler used to say: “God does not give 
us ready money; he issues promissory notes and then 
pays them when faith presents them at the throne. 
Each one of us is given a check book.” 

The faith in Samson was not a disregard of means. 
His eyes had been put out—true; his strength had been 
taken from him, for he had broken God’s law, and 
many a life in the breaking of God’s law has lost its 
power of faith, and fails to realise what is the cause. 
But, there is a chance; there is a power to turn back—a 
regaining influence. So, we can see Samson, blinded 


FAITH REWARDED 


161 


as he was—the great strength of his body standing out 
as he bent beneath the task that was his; as he strained 
his muscles and stretched himself to that task, and 
leaned between those great pillars until they yielded, 
and the great roof fell, and the sinful were crushed as 
they fell in the debris. He exercised the supreme effort 
of his life as he relied upon his God. He ran to the 
contest like David the shepherd lad. 

You can see this all through God’s teaching. Did 
David select those five little stones for the sling and 
simply rely upon his own strength? No, he ran to 
Goliath. Constantly the servants of God are exercising 
their every effort. Why could not David have slain 
the giant without a sling and the stones ? Why not say, 
“My God can defeat that giant.” No, this skillful 
youth, this shepherd lad, selected these stones and ran 
to the contest, saying, “Jehovah is greater than this 
false champion of the Philistines.” 

Let us then understand clearly the power and con¬ 
fidence which is revealed in the use of means and 
understanding it, let us live accordingly. 

Second: Let us understand that the Assurance of 
faith must be ours, if faith is to be rewarded. I love 
to go back to the Old Testament—sometimes we infer 
that we do not depend upon the wise sayings of the 
sages of God who have spoken in the olden days. Well, 
select your man. Who shall he be ? Solomon, you say 
—wiser than any human genius. Far more so in his 
remarkable sayings than Plato or Aristotle, and in¬ 
spired of God. We will go back to the book of 
Proverbs. In the first chapter we read: “But whoso 
hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet 


162 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 
from fear of evil.” How is this for assurance? And 
in the fourteenth chapter, “In the fear of the Lord is 
strong confidence and His children shall have a place of 
refuge.” 

Take a man with the philosophic bent and the 
spiritual insight of St. Paul. He said, “Your faith 
shall not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power 
of God.” Take those words in Hebrews—“Who 
through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteous¬ 
ness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the 
sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed 
valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the 
aliens.” 

This same Paul said, “I know Whom I have be¬ 
lieved.” Go back to old Job, and he says: “I know 
that my Redeemer liveth.” The contamination of 
fleshy conditions, the dire punishment which the world 
said had come upon him because of his sin (and which 
he knew was not true) did not take from him his 
assurance. 

Christ said, “Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” 
“According to your faith, be it unto you.” 

This confidence and assurance will relate itself to 
prayer. We will believe and possess, because we be¬ 
lieve. There is no presumption in it. “If we ask any¬ 
thing in His Name He heareth us.” 

John Flavel, the old saint, said: “There are three 
acts of faith: assent, acceptance, assurance, and the 
assurance grows out of the other two.” 

Third: Faith means living the seen life in the unseen 
God. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath 


FAITH REWARDED 163 

it entered the heart of man the things which God hath 
prepared for them that love Him.” This is not only a 
promise of heaven, but it is a possession of earth. It 
is beautiful to quote that verse for the future, and it is 
of great comfort and help at times of sorrow, but it 
was not originally intended for funeral services. It is 
a present possession. “Eye hath not seen, neither hath 
it entered the heart of man . . . the things which God 
hath prepared for us.” The possessions of the unseen 
God, through faith, become the reality of the seeing 
man upon earth. It does not in any way lessen the 
glory and beauty of the future, but it enhances the 
present. 

We are living in a day when a great deal is said as 
to religion and its influences upon the present day prob¬ 
lems. Some feel this is unscriptural, but they are mis¬ 
guided. You often hear these words: “My citizenship 
is in heaven,” but that does not give you authority to 
think that you are not to vote right, and to have your 
share of helpfulness in the world in which we live. 

The religion of Jesus Christ does not go with poor 
sanitation, nor with a disregard of the great moral 
law. The strongest human lives in their relationship 
to Christ are those who exercise the forces and the 
power of the present in their confidence and belief, and 
who in the Unseen God have faith to make the seen 
world better. 

There has at times been a controversy, a wrong con¬ 
troversy and unwarranted controversy, between the 
elements of moral reform, social betterment and 
spiritual leadership. There should be the closest sym¬ 
pathy. The Church, whether so exercising her au- 


164 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

thority by name or not, should be in the very midst 
of every enterprise for the betterment of mankind, 
for the correction of wrong, the enforcement of law! 
Thank God as we look through the great catalog of 
philanthropic institutions and institutions of moral re¬ 
form, we find that the men and leaders of the Church 
of Christ have been connected from the beginning with 
these works. 

It is not strange that we to-day find error ofttimes 
encasing and surrounding itself by that interpretation 
of life that closes its eyes to the present and sees only 
the future, but it is unscriptural. It is religious bigotry 
of the worst form; it is the “holier than thou” standard. 

The power of the Unseen exercises itself in the 
seen, and the great dangers of life are overcome be¬ 
cause of this Unseen but living faith. 

Again we ought to realize that faith accepts God’s 
promises and thus becomes practical conviction. 

James Freeman Clark said, “All the strength and 
force of man comes from his faith in things unseen, 
which means conviction.” He went on to say that “it 
precedes great action. Clear, deep, living convictions 
rule the world.” 

God’s promises are not to be side-tracked and unbe¬ 
lieved, but because God speaks we are to believe Him 
and to live those promises in that living faith which 
responds with power to His will and work. 

Napoleon, when reviewing his troops in Paris, was 
riding his splendid steed, when his bridle fell from his 
hand, and the "horse, a great fiery beast, uncontrolled 
save with his touch, leaped away. Before Napoleon 
could get that bridle a soldier from the ranks darted 


FAITH REWARDED 


165 


out and seizing the bridle placed it in Napoleon’s hand. 
Napoleon said, “Thank you, captain,” and immediately 
the man responded: “Of what regiment, sire?” Na¬ 
poleon answered, “Of my guard.” He left his gun and 
went to the officers’ headquarters. They said to him: 
“What means this undisciplined fellow ? Why are you 
here among these officers?” He said, “Because I am a 
captain, sir.” The officer said, “Captain,” and sneered 
at him. “Of what regiment?” “Of his guard,” the 
soldier replied pointing to Napoleon who was passing. 
“Who said so?” asked an officer. “He did, General,” 
was the reply. The General responded, ‘Pardon me, 
sir; we honour you in your position.” 

“The captain of his guard!” Why Napoleon had 
said it, and the private soldier believed it and took him 
at his word. And you and I, before the King of kings, 
and before the promises of the Almighty God wither 
and tremble with fear when God says, “Believe, accept,” 
and the strength of God’s power is in the recognition 
of that response. 

The realisation and possession of such faith can 
change the influence of Christ throughout the world. 

Dr. Parkhurst used to say, “Faith is the heroism of 
the intellect.” Ruskin said, “The proper power of 
faith is to trust without evidence, not with evidence,” 
and you and I are trying to make faith something that 
it is not. We say, “Yes, show me the evidence.” 
Why, that is not faith. Faith is to trust without that 
evidence in the confidence and belief of the living God. 

I love those words we quoted in prayer this morning 
from Tennyson: 


166 PLACES GF QUIET STRENGTH 

“Strong Son of God, Immortal Love, 

Whom we that have not seen Thy face, 

By faith and faith alone embrace, 

Believing where we cannot prove.” 

There is a wonderful power and influence in this 
exercise of faith. God Himself says He will make 
strength out of weakness, and that the use of power 
which we have will respond constantly, even as God 
Himself provides. There is an old proverb which says, 
“Weave in faith and God will find the thread.” 

Our own Whittier was more than inspired by human 
thought when he said: 

“I know not where His islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air, 

I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond His love and care.” 

It was the exercise of a great faith in a day when 
the nation was in turmoil, and when the thoughts of 
men were filled with strife and confusion that this 
man’s faith was exercised in such thoughts. 

I love that story of Wesley when, as a youth, he was 
convinced of the Lutheran Doctrine and interpretation 
of Justification by Faith. He said, “I cannot preach 
any more. It is too powerful.” He went to a young 
Moravian Missionary, and said, “I cannot preach be¬ 
lieving that truth.” The Missionary said, “Yes, 
preach.’ Wesley said, “What shall I preach?” The 
Moravian said, “Preach faith until you have it, then 
preach faith because you have it.” That was what 
Wesley did and it resulted in his great influence. 

Paul did not say, “I do not know whom I have 


FAITH REWARDED 167 

believed, but I know what he wants me to do.” No. He 
said, “I know whom I have believed,” and then “^What 
wilt Thou have me to do.” 

Believe! Oh, but you say there are so many doubts 
and difficulties. Of course there are, and always will 
be. But the Saviour heeded the prayer, “Lord I be¬ 
lieve, help Thou my unbelief.” 

And to-day when the varied conditions of human 
life seem in the very balance, men are challenged, not 
as to their deeds alone, but as to their faith. Men of 
courage, men of confidence, men of hope, men of life! 
Believe, and as the convictions of a great faith thrill 
your life, the mists will be backed up by the sun! 
There will be a rift in the cloud until all is clear, and 
living in the splendid life of confidence and belief, you 
will say, “My Lord and My God 1” 


XVI 


GOD-GIVEN PERSONALITY 
“And man became a living soul.”— Genesis 2 :y. 

Ours is a profound theme this morning. One feels 
almost like running from it. Not because its greatness 
is not recognised, but because a true student of the 
subject finds himself asking: “What is man that Thou 
art mindful of him, or the Son of man that Thou 
visitest him ?” He feels the utter inability of a human 
being to express the meaning of such a truth! 

This is a very hot day. Many of us are strangers; 
many have come here to worship God without particu¬ 
lar thought as to a particular theme, but may God grant 
that this theme this morning may grip our minds and 
mould our characters, irrespective of conditions or sur¬ 
roundings. 

The text is found in Genesis 2The 27th verse of 
the first chapter says: “So God created man in His 
own image, in the image of God created He him; male 
and female created He them.” . . , “and man became 
a living soul.” 

When the great poet Tennyson was picturing one 
who, out of the depth of sorrow and perplexity and 
loss of years, must look into the past and face the 
future, he said of Enoch Arden: 

168 


GOD-GIVEN PERSONALITY 169 

“His resolve upbore him, and firm faith, 

And prayer, from a living source 
Within the will, 

And beating up through all this bitter world, 
Like fountains of sweet w~ter in the deep, 

Kept him a living soul.” 

God made man a “living soul.” The beasts of the 
field, He created; all that makes up the species of nature 
everywhere, and over them all He put a dominating 
spirit, and that dominating spirit was man. There is 
a great deal of worthless talk to-day as to the origin of 
the human race. To me it does not seem worthy the 
discussion and prominence it is gaining. God’s Word 
says : “And man became a living soul.” 

A great authority in the British Museum (and 
there is no greater) says there has never been the 
slightest scientific evidence which has revealed any 
connecting link between the animal kingdom and that 
which we call human. 

Now, one other word—why discuss it? Why not 
accept the great unmakeable, unchangeable God- 
created? We do not read that God developed, but 
“in the beginning God created ” The Creator made 
man in His own image and endowed him with gifts 
which brute creation has never had and cannot attain. 

The soul of man, then, is our theme, but more— 
“God-given personality,” that which is divine in human 
form. 

In order that we may be clear, consider this illustra¬ 
tion: Take a great group of ignorant people—those 
who have never had intellectual training in any form, 
who have lived as brutes. There is nothing that marks 


170 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

the individual from the individual. They are almost 
alike, but when intelligence begins, faces begin to 
change, heads begin to change in form and the very 
brains of a man express themselves in his eyes. Again, 
look into a college graduating class. You see any¬ 
where from five hundred or one thousand up in a class 
of one of our Universities, and as they go up to get 
their diplomas you notice the individuality of those 
graduates; the distinction of those faces; the difference 
in those personalities; and, the greater the intelligence, 
the more clearly outlined in the faces is the marked 
individuality. Look at a great crowd of ignorant, 
superstitious, careless people, and they almost seem as 
if they were the repetition of one man and seem alike. 
God made a distinct and definite personality of every 
one of us. I am speaking of the normal life, the health¬ 
ful life. He gave to us a capability of developing that 
individual something which we call ourself. Our own 
souls are unique. 

How far are we as individuals to give back to God 
the true development of that responsibility which He 
has placed upon us in filling our lives with Himself? 
He made our souls worthy of the God-like personality 
which He has given to us. Notice the twenty-seventh 
verse of the first chapter: “So God created man in His 
own image, in the image of God created he him.” 

Now the record of the fall. Just why the Eternal 
Mind should have planned that the human being 
whom He had created should not eat of the tree of 
good and evil, and thus gain the knowledge thereof, 
we do not know, but that human characteristic was 
implanted somewhere so that the desire to do that 


GOD-GIVEN PERSONALITY 171 

which was withheld stood out as sin. Sin was not in 
the inclination, but in the yielding. That human life 
yielded, and now the human life knows evil as well as 
good. God is there, but there is added the tendency 
to do wrong and evil. Now that tendency to do wrong 
developed into all that was low. That was the sepa¬ 
rating influence from God. Goodness was a part of 
Him. Then came the decline that departed from the 
eternal to the human, and sin with all its influence and 
wrong began and continued. 

How can man get back to God? How can man 
reclaim his loss ? How can man have again that which 
was and is his by divine inheritance ? How constantly 
he has sought and failed! This Old Testament history 
from Genesis right through the Exodus reveals it. 
Right on through that law period of Leviticus, on 
through Numbers and Deuteronomy, and the record of 
those historical days; through the days of Samuel and 
the Judges, through the Kings into the books of Ezra, 
Nehemiah and Esther, that beautiful picture of domes¬ 
tic life; through the trials of Job and the great songs 
of David, it proceeds. Then through the Proverbs of 
that wisest of all men, and the songs which bear his 
name, and the greater prophets of Isaiah, Jeremiah, 
Ezekiel, Daniel, with the Minor Prophets of Hosea, 
Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah down to Malachi— 
those prophets, every one, leading up to the Gospel 
Story of the New Testament, tell us of the failure of 
man to regain his position with God. “Man became a 
living soul/’ but this God-given personality had sinned, 
and on through these ages not only the individual, but 


172 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

organised Israel and Judah, and all those who were 
related to them sinned constantly against God. 

David cried unto God and realised that he was a 
sinner. He yielded to a gross sin, and then in the 
moment when that prophet turned to him and said: 
“Thou art the man,” he said, “Have mercy upon me, 
O God! Blot out my transgression. Wash me thor¬ 
oughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my 
sin!” Isaiah looked upon a world of vice and sin and 
said, “What hope is there?” Then a voice speaking 
through Isaiah said, “Though your sins be as scarlet, 
they shall be white as snow; though they be red like 
crimson, they shall be as wool.” Then again a voice 
saying not only, “Come now and let us reason together, 
saith the Lord,” but “All we like sheep have gone 
astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and 
the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” 
“Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sor¬ 
rows, yet we do esteem Him stricken, smitten of God 
and afflicted. But He was wounded for our trans¬ 
gressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chas¬ 
tisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His 
stripes we are healed.” Isaiah, that great prophet of 
all ages, whose heart was broken because of his people, 
cried out, “O God, have mercy upon these, Thy chil¬ 
dren, who have sinned against Thee constantly.” Thus 
we find the cry of all those prophets recognises the 
failure of man to live up to the state to which God had 
called him. Man was made in God’s image; man became 
a living soul, but he degraded himself. He fell from his 
life. He became like the beasts of the field that perish. 
We pass through great forests and great rivers and see 


GOD-GIVEN PERSONALITY 173 

dirt and mud in all their accumulation, when all about 
there are fields filled with the verdure and beauty, and 
the loveliness and growth of nature, but beasts wallow 
on because of their nature, and man whom God created 
in His own image fell from the estate in which God 
had placed him! And the great cry and sorrow of 
human life are not the result of God’s choice, but the 
result of man’s act as through the inclination of sin 
he fell from the estate into which God had placed him. 
It is the same throughout the history of the world. 
Generations repeat themselves. Hundreds of ages have 
passed since the words of our text were quoted, and 
still man’s inclination is just the same. “Man became 
a living soul,” but he falls from that estate. 

Consider also this sad fact. The dumb animal is not 
conscious of anything said to him. You may speak to 
one of those beasts and say all you want to about 
wallowing in the mud, but he wallows on. You may 
speak to man in a wise and thoughtful way and there 
is something in his soul that responds, unless sin has 
gone so far as to petrify the very instinct of the soul. 
There are some humans no doubt in this world who 
will just grunt and wallow; who “only live to sleep 
and feed.” They are “the unlettered herd.” With 
others there is a response—a latent something which 
says, “I desire, I long,” and sometimes it has the 
character to say, “I will,” and follow the will with 
action. 

To restore the great purpose and plan of God in hu¬ 
man life—that is the question. The God-given soul, the 
God-given personality! Is it to overcome or to be over¬ 
come? Is it to die in sin and immorality and wrong, 


174 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

or overcome and strive to win and gain the ascendency 
of right and purity and truth? Milton wrote that 
great book, “Paradise Lost,” but the world cried out: 
“Give us a Paradise Regained!” When in his prison 
cell, in the anxiety of sin and ignorance around him, 
John Bunyan wrote of a pilgrim seeking a celestial 
city, the world received a priceless allegory, not because 
it is a marvellous piece of English, nor for the rare 
imagery of a unique writer, but because the soul really 
longed for that celestial city, and the soul created in 
God’s image wanted something pure and beautiful. 

God has given to us a divine instinct and so we 
crave and long for that which we know we do not 
possess. 

Now here comes the wonderful strategic point—the 
great crisis, as if all of life were on this earth and all of 
death were here too. The Major and Minor prophets 
have spoken their very worst and have condemned the 
world. There seems to be no hope, no chance; the 
advisors of the weak suffering Job go away in disgust, 
and say, “He will not listen to our wisdom,” but Job 
realises that there is a wisdom beyond the wisdom of 
human life. What is that crisis? The crisis is the 
Cross. The world has never known its fulness, nor 
its meaning, and the world can never understand it. 
A mystery! But, “at the Cross where I first saw the 
light” there the spirit of God meets the need of man, 
and God calls man back in his creative strength and 
says, “I am come that ye might have life and that ye 
might have it abundantly,” and man again becomes a 
living soul, and sin has found its conqueror. This is 


GOD-GIVEN PERSONALITY 175 

the message of the Cross. That Cross is the “power 
of God unto salvation to every one that belie veth.” 

“The first Adam was made a living soul; the second 
Adam was made a life-giving spirit,” “As in Adam all 
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” The 
power of Jesus Christ to save the soul of man is 
recognised everywhere. It is only the arrogant, the 
thoughtless, the careless who are carried away by the 
love of wisdom, by a false and sometimes misleading 
philosophy, who fail to know the message and see 
the power of this great living truth wherein the soul 4 
may again gain its own personality in the God-given 
salvation of the Cross.” 

We are living in a very peculiar age. Every one is 
thinking of religion in terms of generality, in desires 
and inclinations to understand and know, but without 
definiteness of vision. Everywhere there are vagaries 
of truth. When a new so-called religious truth is to be 
presented, men flock to hear. Why ? Because the world 
realises its failure to meet the needs of the soul. Philos¬ 
ophies do not satisfy. The very vagaries of thought 
of mere philosophy are the manifestations of the 
questioning of the soul for something that mill satisfy. 
Men live and die simply to find they are not satisfied. 

Why not come back to the simplicity of the Cross? 
Why not realise what it is to know that we are stewards 
of the mystery of God and that the very mystery is that 
which makes it priceless. The greatest intellects in all 
the world are the men who realise how little they know 
about the subjects they study. You know how easy 
it is for a boy in his first class in chemistry to go home 
to his mother and say “I know all there is to know 


176 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

about chemistry,” but if he were to talk with his pro¬ 
fessor who has spent his life in studying, he would say, 
“My boy, we are only beginning to understand this 
subject, and I feel as if I knew nothing of it.” Some 
one said at one time to John Bright, “What a wonder¬ 
ful knowledge of law you have!” He replied, “Would, 
young man, that I knew the first elements of justice 1 I 
am only a student of justice.” Great lives are overcome 
by the majesty of mystery; little lives must know every 
single step in definition. They do not know the realm 
of faith. Great lives work on in mystery that they may 
gain the truth and understand its scope. The greatness 
of a soul is measured not by its knowledge, nor by the 
recognition of its own learning, but by the conscious¬ 
ness of its own ignorance. 

Insincere people who are not good are ofttimes dis¬ 
covered in their sin because they proclaim their right¬ 
eousness. Humility is an evidence of worth, unless it 
is insincere. 

God has breathed into our beings the breath of life, 
and Jesus Christ came that we might have life and 
have it abundantly. 

Then the meaning of the Cross is mysterious. Of 
course, it is. Who has ever solved it? We have books 
which claim to explain the doctrine of the Atonement. 
I have never read an explanation that satisfied my 
intellectual life, and never expect to read one. The 
strength of the Atonement is not an argument but a 
faith. The power of the Atonement is that it never has 
been and never can be successfully argued by a human 
mind. It grows in the realm of mystery. 

On the Commons of Boston, forty years ago, they 


GOD-GIVEN PERSONALITY ITT 

arrested Dr. Hastings. Why? Because he proclaimed 
what they claimed was a sectarianism, but he simply 
stood for the Atonement on the authority of God’s 
Word. They questioned him in one of the halls of 
Justice, and he answered them by this thought: “You 
ask me a question; I will ask you one.” He said, 
“Where does the egg come from ?” They laughed and 
said, “From a hen.” Said Hastings, “Where does a 
hen come from?” “An egg,” they said. “I thought 
you said the egg came from the hen,” he replied. “Oh, 
well, I meant the hen came from the egg.” “Do you 
understand it ? Can you make an egg with a hen in it ? 
Can you make a hen that will produce an egg? Who 
made the egg? Who made the hen? What is life? 
What I proclaim is the meaning of the divine mystery 
which tells us that life is unknown, and you men on 
the streets of this independent, frank, open city of 
freedom arrest me for proclaiming the mystery of God 
and life and Christ. Again, I proclaim, saying, ‘In 
him is life and the life is the light of men.’ ” They let 
Hastings go and the justice of the city was answered. 

Whoever has answered the question since ? What is 
life? What makes life? Has any one ever attended 
any hospital, studio or laboratory in all the world where 
a germ was made which has life in it? Why the 
ridiculousness of it is apparent. What is life? God 
made man in his own image and with that image He 
gave him the mystery of the divine hope and divine 
purpose. Oh, men and women, you and I have the 
opportunity and the responsibility to live true to that 
Divine Image in which we are created. 

The great question of the ages is not the question— 


178 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

Who is God ? Or, What is man ? The great question 
of the ages is this: What are these souls of ours to do 
in the perfection of that great moral, intellectual and 
spiritual nature, whereby more of God becomes a part 
of human life, human thinking and human acting? 
That is where the simplicity of Jesus comes in. Men 
who have learned to be like God have seen the image 
of God in Jesus Christ. That is why these words which 
were written by John are priceless. He seemed to 
understand better than others just what the mystery of 
this truth was, and so he says in the twelfth verse of 
his first chapter: “As many as received Him, to them 
gave He the power to become the sons of God, even 
to them that believe on His name.” And in the four¬ 
teenth verse of the first chapter, “And the Word be¬ 
came flesh.” God was made flesh—“And the Word 
was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His 
glory, the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, 
full of grace and truth.” God came down and was 
man. He became flesh that we might understand God ; 
learn to live and think like God, and love like God, and 
learn to overcome in the righteousness and power of 
His life. That is the Gospel message of His Son. 
That is why Christ became man and dwelt among us 
and we beheld His glory. 

The question of the hour is, “How can you and I 
overcome and be like Him?” I read this week of a man 
who died in a small community in a western state. The 
article said he was a man of which his community said, 
“He walked with God, and everybody loved him.” 
Unknown to me, to you, but not to God—a man who 
like Enoch of old, “walked with God.” 


GOD-GIVEN PERSONALITY 179 

The great question of the age is how this mind, this 
body of ours; how this human of ours; this brain, this 
soul can learn more of God and know more of God and 
live more like Him and understand the future and 
mystery of it so that when we come to die, it will be all 
right. “And man became a living soul.” “God 
breathed into him the breath of life.” “Christ came 
that we might have life and_ might have it more 
abundantly.” The privilege of the hour is the privilege 
of your soul and mine. Statesmen after statesmen 
have said that the great question of the ages is the 
personal relationship of the soul to God. Jesus Christ 
came to make it sure and permanent; and may the life 
of Christ come into our hearts and lives, that living, 
walking and knowing Him we may have the abundant 
life. Then the God-given soul and the God-given per¬ 
sonality will be able to say with Paul, “For me to live is 
for Christ to live,” and “God forbid that I should glory 
save in the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom I 
am crucified unto the world and the world unto me.” 
“I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not 
I but Christ liveth in me, and the life that I now live in 
iihe flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who 
foved me and gave Himself for me.” “For me to live 
is Christ.” This is the God-given personality: And 
the new birth in Christ again “makes man a living 
soul.” 


XVII 


THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 

“But ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit 
is come upon you.”—A cts i :8. 

Great truths demand great faith. Great faith mag¬ 
nifies God and minimises self. Great faith simplifies 
definitions and accepts statements because of belief in 
him who affirms. The life corresponds to the faith, 
and is accepted as vital because the believer becomes the 
incarnation of his belief. Abraham believed God, and 
it was “accounted to him for righteousness.” We be¬ 
lieve in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We 
accept our Saviour’s word, “He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father”; and also, “I and my Father are one.” 
We also accept the words of Christ, “Believe me that I 
am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe 
it for the very works’ sake.” “Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do 
shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he 
do, because I go unto the Father.” “Whatsoever ye 
shall ask in my name that will I do. . . . If ye shall 
ask anything in my name, that will I do. . . . And I 
will pray the Father and He will give you another 
Helper, that He may be with you forever, even the 
Spirit of Truth. Whom the world cannot receive 
because it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him. 

180 


THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 181 

But ye know Him, for He abideth with you and shall 
be in you.” 

A little later Christ says: “These things have I 
spoken unto you while yet abiding with you, but the 
Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will 
send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and 
bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you.” 

Again He adds in the same Gospel, as recorded by 
John: “I tell you the truth. It is wise for you that I 
go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not; 
come unto you. If I go I will send Him unto you, and 
when He is come, He will convict the world in respect 
of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. . . . 
When the Spirit of Truth is come, He shall guide you 
into all truth. He shall not speak of Himself, but what 
things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak. . . . 
He shall glorify me. He shall take of mine and declare 
it unto you.” 

These words were the words of our Master just 
before He was crucified. After His resurrection, just 
before He ascended, He said to the men of Galilee: 
“Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is 
come upon you. Ye shall be my witnesses.” 

We treasure the last words of the great souls of 
earth, and of those whom we love, with supreme care. 
When with sane mind and thoughtful consideration 
those words have been spoken, they are ever held in 
sacred memory and have inestimable influence. Re¬ 
cently one of our beloved citizens, having died, left a 
beautiful wish and admonition for his children regard¬ 
ing their care for their mother and for one another, 


182 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

and the touching words are constantly repeated in the 
homes of all who knew and loved the family. 

Our Lord and Master states these words as to the 
Holy Spirit with gracious wisdom and profound in¬ 
sight. He knew that He was soon to leave those who 
were dependent upon Him, and whose faith had been 
largely centred in His personality and leadership. He 
had for this great world, and for the ever-increasing 
Church which He loved, a legacy far greater than He 
Himself could ever give had He remained on the earth, 
the Man of Nazareth and the leader of the twelve. A 
limited circle would come into personal and vital asso¬ 
ciation with Him, but the Invisible and Eternal, Omni¬ 
present Spirit was to make His dwelling place in human 
hearts, and every Christian body was to become His 
indwelling temple. 

We believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God 
the Holy Spirit. And may I ask this morning why we 
do not appreciate and appropriate the presence and 
power of the Holy Spirit, according to the promises of 
our Lord and Master ? 

The preface of our text is very human. The won¬ 
derful experiences of the resurrection had not taken 
from Christ’s followers the curiosity and craving for 
the outward manifestation of His glory. They were 
impatient. Time, place and events filled their minds. 
When would this Victor over death and the grave 
“restore again the kingdom to Israel’’? We can pic¬ 
ture our risen Lord with calm and deliberate voice, 
replying to them, “It is not for you to know times or 
seasons, which the Father hath set within His own 
authority. But ye shall receive power when the Holy 


THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 183 

Spirit is come unto you; and ye shall be my wit¬ 
nesses.'' 

The one great truth which Christ would impart 
to those early followers, so soon to be left without His 
personality and presence in leadership, was the truth 
of the reality of the Holy Spirit, and the power which 
was to be theirs through Him. 

Throughout the centuries and ages of the Christian 
Church this theme has been without a rival, and still 
we seem to evade and postpone it, perhaps because so 
many have erred in narrowing and limiting and mis¬ 
construing it; perhaps because we have feared to tread 
such holy ground. The Church of Christ has needed 
this truth, and needs it more than ever in this age in 
which we live, so filled with its complexity of thought; 
so eager to know the truth and apply it practically to 
life; so willing to search into the deep things of human 
philosophy and material science and discover new rela¬ 
tionships, adjustments and appliances of truth. 

Because Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Daniel, David, 
Elijah, John the Baptist, Stephen and Paul were men 
singled out in their day as embodiments of God’s Holy 
Spirit, men in whom the Spirit of God dwelt, they 
were men of matchless power. Others were brilliant, 
individualistic, scholarly, efficient, attractive, magnani¬ 
mous. But these great leaders whom God selected 
were men who had more than eminent, or pre-eminent, 
gifts or culture. They were men of holy life; men 
whose secret strength came from personal contact with 
the Almighty; men of whom kings and peasantry cried 
out: “Can we find such a man as this, a man in whom 
the Spirit of God is?” 


184 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

Moses was forced to flee to the pinnacled heights of 
the Sinai wilderness; Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites 
by his angered brothers; David fled from cave to cave, 
pursued by an envying Saul; Stephen sank beneath the 
stones hurled by an infuriated religious mob: but the 
world knew and knows that these men were men of 
God’s choice, who in life and death led in the recon¬ 
struction and reorganisation of society—men who 
turned from human philosophy to divine truth. They 
were men of power. 

The last great promise that Christ made us, when 
men heard His words as they came from lips which the 
eye could see, was the promise of the power of His 
Holy Spirit Who would come and remain with us, in¬ 
struct, comfort, strengthen, and accomplish for and 
through us. This power of the Holy Spirit was to be 
given first in the common-place duties of life. Those 
early disciples were zealous for the restoration of 
Israel’s great kingdom. Christ calls them back to sim¬ 
plicity in service. What He needed was witnessing. 
The world knew Him not. Only a little circle under¬ 
stood the mission of Jesus of Nazareth, and the power 
of the Holy Spirit was to be theirs that they should 
witness, beginning where they were, in Jerusalem; 
then in Judaea; then to the despised and neglected 
Samaritans; then even to the uttermost parts of the 
world. 

From the study of our subject we find that men have 
felt that the outpouring of God’s Spirit upon a com¬ 
munity has too frequently implied a great and extraor¬ 
dinary movement—one which is out of the ordinary; 
unnatural, extensive, exceptional, commanding—when 


THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 185 

the presence of God’s Spirit should be the natural ex¬ 
pression of His indwelling power, that we may accom¬ 
plish the ordinary tasks of life with faithful regularity 
and simplicity. God does not require exceptional gifts 
to do His work well. Not many wise or mighty men 
have been chosen. Many a man who has been uncon¬ 
scious of gifts has been used of God in the hastening of 
His kingdom. Ten thousand men had brighter pros¬ 
pects, and more brilliant training than Bunyan in the 
Bedford jail. Spurgeon and Moody were not youths 
of such remarkable promise. It is not so much what a 
man is without the Spirit of God that counts, but what 
a man becomes when the Spirit of God abides within 
him, and God, with His power, uses man as His 
medium. 

The world has comparatively few extraordinary 
tasks to perform, but it has countless ordinary tasks. 
There are few extraordinary men, but the world is filled 
with ordinary men whom God can use. We have our 
tasks and problems, our perplexities and trials, our 
dangers and distresses, not only as ministers and elders, 
not only within our own parishes, but everywhere. 
But the people are willing in the day of God’s power, 
where the Holy Spirit leads and guides the individual 
or church life, that His will may be done and His plan 
accomplished. We need the vision of the Most High. 
We need a fuller realisation of the presence of our 
God to solve the problems, local and general, individual 
and collective, the problems within the local church 
and the problems within the church at large. 

“What do you do,” asked one of our citizens, “when 
you are tired and worried and overcome with fatigue— 


186 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

when the problems of your work mount up before you 
and seem to cloud the day and rob you of the hours of 
sleep ?” “I take a train and go out to the Rockies. 
When I see those great mountain-peaks with their 
snow-capped summits, their precipitous rocky sides, and 
their noble ridges and peaks, I feel the very majesty of 
God crying out to me, and literally ‘lift up my eyes 
unto the hills, from whence cometh my help/ ” 

Well, few of us can do this. The mountains are far 
away. But the great ranges of divine truth are near at 
hand, and the Divine Guide and Friend is ever present 
and near, and the power of the Holy One is with us in 
the person of the Holy Spirit to comfort and direct, to 
poise and plan, to rest and strengthen us. In Him is 
the source of all strength and power, filling our lives 
with hope and joy and peace, and giving to us in our 
own humble sphere the actual power of the Almighty 
God, Who is “infinite, eternal and unchangeable.” 

The power of God’s Holy Spirit means a hopeful 
ministry and a joyful, peaceful life. Paul knew what 
perplexities and problems were, and when he closed that 
letter to the Roman Church, he wrote: “Now the God 
of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, 
that ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy 
Spirit.” We need a hopeful ministry, a joy-filled life, 
a peace which means poise, an abundant and abounding 
life which expresses the power of the indwelling Spirit 
of God. There is triumph in such character; there is 
permanent victory in such faith. Discouraged men fill 
life with fever and ague and pain, with anemia and 
melancholia. Men and churches run from such persons 
as from contagious disease. All kinds of envy and 


THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 18T 

jealousy, all forms of gossip and littleness find ex¬ 
pression in such lives. They become friendless and 
companionless. Frequently in their loneliness they 
become embittered and actually forlorn. They even 
abhor self-companionship. Contrary to such sad ex¬ 
istence, we find the Spirit-filled life, with the fruit 
thereof evident—“love, joy, peace, long suffering, gen¬ 
tleness, faith, meekness, self-control.” The God of 
Hope is filling the life “with all joy and peace in be¬ 
lieving.” Positive convictions control lives; doubts are 
scattered to the four winds; men see and feel, and think 
and act, with the needs of others in view, and find the 
joyful meaning of life in service for others. 

The power of the Holy Spirit is manifesting itself 
in all kinds of personal victory; things which would 
annoy and trouble are quickly forgotten and over¬ 
looked and unmentioned. The power of God’s Holy 
Spirit is personal victory every day. Men believe in 
their fellowmen, irrespective of weaknesses and blem¬ 
ishes in character. We do not lose our faith in men 
because men fall, because men are scoffers, or uncon¬ 
cerned, or inefficient. The power of the Holy Spirit 
gives grace as well as faith. We read of Stephen: 
“He was a man filled with grace.” He could pray for 
those who stoned him to death, and pray with a smile; 
thank God for the power of prayer, as he prayed for 
their forgiveness. 

The first fruit of the Spirit is love. What a wonder¬ 
ful definition of love we have in First Corinthians, 
where Paul says: 

“Love suffereth long and is kind; love envieth not; 
love vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up, 


188 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

“Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its 
own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 

“Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, 

“Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all 
things, endureth all things. 

“Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, 
they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall 
cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. 

“For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 

“But when that which is perfect is come, that which 
is in part shall be done away. 

“When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood 
as a child, I thought as a child; but wher I am become a 
man, I have put away childish things. 

“For now we see in a glass, darkly; but then face 
to face; now I know in part; but then shall I know 
even as also I am known. 

“And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but 
the greatest of these is love. 

“Follow after love; and desire spiritual gifts, but 
rather that ye may prophesy. ,, 

The power of the Holy Spirit manifests itself in a 
praying church, and reveals His power in God’s answers 
to those prayers. We talk of prayer; we believe in 
prayer; but, do we represent the praying church, and 
are we known as men of prayer? The theory of prayer 
may exist without its practice. We may believe in 
prayer and talk of prayer and write of prayer—but do 
we pray? Does God know us as men of power in 
prayer? The missionary world is filled to-day with 
men of praying power. 

Many years ago at Northfield, when conducting a 


THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 189 

class at one of the student conferences, I rose early 
that I might prepare my work fresh each morning. 
The man with whom I stayed was a missionary in 
India—quiet, unnoticed, and without special leadership 
in the conference. Not a single morning did I rise 
without finding my roommate on his knees before an 
open Bible. All the experiences of that conference, the 
men of God who spoke, the earnest addresses delivered 
—all have gone from my mind, but the living impres¬ 
sion of that man of prayer has never gone. All un¬ 
consciously, he influenced my belief in prayer and gave 
me its deeper meaning. 

It is said by one of the fellow-students of the late 
William Whiting Borden that one cold morning when a 
number of them as students were away together and oc¬ 
cupied the same room, one of the number arose, think¬ 
ing all the others would be asleep. There he saw this 
student, wrapped in a blanket, on his knees before God, 
pouring out his heart to the Almighty. 

Prayer power is the power of God’s Holy Spirit 
within the life. Scores of the problems of our daily 
lives and parishes would cease to be problems, if we 
knew aright the throne of grace and realised fully that 
we have not only the promise of Christ, but its fulfil¬ 
ment, for we are living in the day of power of God’s 
Holy Spirit. 

What a marvellous hold we have with the whole 
world through this power of prayer! Missions at 
home and abroad, all our varied church and world¬ 
wide interests may be taken to God, and every problem 
solved, as we pray, “in faith believing.” There is not a 
single problem which faces our General Assembly at 


190 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

this time which may not be solved aright, if we allow 
God to solve them; if we are willing to look beyond our 
own plans, and realise that God is far more interested 
in every detail of our work than we can be; that God is 
willing to correct any error and regulate all workman¬ 
ship; that He would free us from all personalities and 
judgments, from all discriminations and prejudices, 
and speak to us in the living power of His own truth, 
as the result of our prayer-filled lives. 

And this brings us to another conception of the 
power of God’s Holy Spirit. There is nothing too 
great for Him to do. We are believers in impossibili¬ 
ties. He glories in the impossible. He shows to men 
the utter fallacy of their own working as He Himself 
changes the plan or project to accomplish a greater 
end. Quickly He removes one life from earth to 
heaven, or transfers one upon whom the world depends 
to another field. No man is indispensable to Him, for 
His great plans work out with wonderful exactness 
and superb precision, but not according to our plans 
and premises. We can “do all things through Christ 
which strengthened us,” for the power of God’s Holy 
Spirit is ours; it has been promised, and He will fulfil.. 
True, we must wait and expect and accept, and appro¬ 
priate, but the presence of God is a permanent presence. 
His greatness is a patient greatness. He is reliable and 
steadfast, and sure and unchanging. 

Our text again makes very evident the fact that the 
power of God is not an acquisition or attainment, but a 
reception. “Ye shall receive power when the Holy 
Spirit is come upon you.” “Ye shall receive power.” 
The Almighty is the giver; we are the receivers. His 


THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 191 

presence commits Him to His task, and we are but to 
receive that which He freely gives. He will work in us 
and through us, and with us and by us. He will use 
our lives, our gifts, whatever they may be, our failures, 
our limitations, for His glory. 

One of our men was taken sick and underwent a 
serious operation in one of our large Presbyterian 
hospitals. Just afterward we learned that two or three 
attendants were influenced by his life, and that one of 
the young physicians who waited upon him remarked 
that his life had given him a new purpose and new 
confidence in Christ. The power of God’s Spirit means 
that human limitations may glorify Him, 

t When the renowned Moon, who invented the recent 
method of finger-reading for the blind, was told that he 
could never see again, he fell upon his knees and 
thanked God for the limitation of blindness. He then 
gave himself to the study and realised for the first 
time the countless thousands who were blind who could 
never know God’s truth. He gave his inventive mind 
so completely to the subject that he discovered this new 
and valuable method. It is said that thousands have 
been converted as a result of his work. 

The power of God’s spirit within our lives means 
vision. ‘‘He shall guide you into all truth.” What a 
limitless view opens before us as we climb this mountain 
of faith; valleys of which we never dreamed; expanses 
far beyond the power of the human eye to see—these 
are the expanding fields of faith into which God would 
lead us. The souls that know such power are never 
tired, no matter how fatigued the body may be. Like 
Arthur Ewing at Allahabad, they see the future of a 


192 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

great nation won for Christ; like Keith Falconer in 
Arabia, they willingly reject the offer of a Cambridge 
professorship that they may speak to the Mohammedan 
world. Like thousands of our missionaries and pas¬ 
tors, at home and abroad, the power of the Holy Spirit 
may be telling and controlling force, which means hope 
and joy and peace in painstaking and constant service. 
Life loses itself in this splendid expression of devotion 
and the heart is happy all the time. 

Lastly, God’s Spirit means complete submission and 
sacrifice. A month or two ago I was leaving one of 
the cities of the Northwest. On the same train was 
one of our loyal missionaries, Frank Higgins, the lum¬ 
ber-jack. He had met with an accident on a Western 
train and was going to be operated upon. One of his 
men accompanied us to the station. His friend had 
been a rough, wicked man before he found the Master, 
but is now living in the daily presence of God’s Spirit. 
He is appropriating the power which is transforming 
his life. Turning to his injured friend, and holding 
out his left arm, he said: “You know my old left here. 
You may need a bit of bone, or blood, or flesh or skin. 
Anything in the old left is yours.” Then lifting his 
right arm, he said: “Anything in my old right is 
yours. I’ll just stay back here at home and wait for a 
message, and the minute you tell me to come I’ll fly to 
you. Anything I’ve got is yours; but you must live 
and you must have strength and power.” Across the 
car, all unknown to them, a man of the world let a 
newspaper fall over his face and his eyes were filled 
with tears. In the moment the train was away, but I 
had gained a vision that night of a noble soul controlled 


THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 193 

by God’s Spirit, whose whole life had been given to the 
Almighty, not merely a dominating influence of friend¬ 
ship and love, but a desire to do God’s work in God’s 
way with his body and being. 

Oh, men of this great Church of ours, which we all 
love, let us be dominated and controlled by the Spirit of 
God, that God’s power may work within us, that noth¬ 
ing trivial nor small may turn us from the path that 
God has planned for us. There are nations to conquer 
for Jesus Christ. There are problems to solve with 
His glorious wisdom. There is spiritual development 
before us of which we have never dreamed. The out¬ 
ward temple of every Church of Christ is secondary. 
The indwelling temple of God is the important one. 
We may hear Him speak to us to-day: “I give you my 
power.” 

As I waited and prayed for a conclusion to this 
message, from an all-unexpected source, but from a 
man of God who leads our midnight mission in this 
city, came this message: 

“It is impressive that the General Assembly meets 
on Ascension Day and continues till Pentecost. In 
arbitrary church days and saints’ days our Church is 
not interested, but the historic anniversaries are dear to 
all believers. May these ten days of the Assembly be 
eternally fruitful.” 

(Sermon by Dr. Stone as retiring Moderator at the opening 
session of the General Assembly, Chicago, May 21, 1914.) 


XVIII 


THE SUBMISSIVE LIFE 

“Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil 
all righteousness.”— Matthew 3:15. 

Eighteen years after His boyhood utterance in the 
Temple at Jerusalem, we hear the Saviour speak again. 
On the border of the Judaean desert, upon the bank of 
the sacred Jordan, He steps out from the shrubbery 
that lines the stream to look into the face of John the 
Baptist, who is baptising. One glance is enough. John 
has been calling the multitude to repentance, but there 
is no need of repentance here—this face is sinless. As 
Jesus stepped to the Jordan to be baptised, John would 
have hindered Him saying: “I have need to be bap¬ 
tised of Thee, and comest Thou to me?” In a calm 
voice of controlling command, Jesus replied: “Suffer 
it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteous- 
ness. ,, 

In His rural home at Nazareth, He had long been 
“subject to His parents,” ever “growing in favor with 
God and man.” The synagogue had been His house of 
worship, save for occasional trips, no doubt, to the 
feast at Jerusalem, where thrice each year the great 
feasts were held. That beautiful valley upon which 
Nazareth looked down had kept Him in closest touch 
194 


195 


THE SUBMISSIVE LIFE 

with nature; His daily work had trained Him in faith¬ 
ful service; His home life had developed the quiet 
patience of His character; and the Old Testament had 
been His meditation and study. He had lived and 
thought according to the Law and the Prophets. The 
law-givers, prophets and priests of old had inspired 
Him with holy zeal and longing anticipation. From 
ancient patriarch, from judge, from king, He had 
gained enthusiasm and motive. As boyhood grew into 
youth, and youth into young manhood, His earnest¬ 
ness must have made Him restless at times to speak 
the word that was so needed to reform and enlighten 
His day. He saw wickedness in high places, hypocrisy, 
injustice, crime. But His hour was not yet come. He 
suffered it. Alone with His God, He was learning 
His sweet will, and the peaceful contentment and 
obedience of His life was speaking with irresistible 
force to all. * „ 

His young manhood had now ripened and He felt the 
inward desire to face the great problem of His life. 
Wonderful reports were coming to Nazareth from the 
great wilderness of Judaea, which bordered the Jordan. 
A strange and mighty prophet had appeared, who spoke 
words of reproof and judgment. He warned the people 
to repent, for the kingdom of God was at hand. He 
told them to “bring forth fruits meet for repentance.” 
All Jerusalem seemed turning out to hear him. Scribes, 
Pharisees, publicans, sinners—all classes and kinds— 
not only from the city but from the country round 
about, were flocking to the Jordan to hear this man, 
dressed in camel's hair, and eating the food of the 
desert, locusts and wild honey. 


196 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

As Jesus in secluded Nazareth heard these words, 
a mighty motive seemed to thrill His whole being. It 
was not that long-felt craving to help his fellow-men 
more widely, but a soul-inspiring vision of duty. He 
had gained His new vision of life. Youthful purpose 
had become mature service. His place was no longer 
His home in Nazareth; even the dear mother and the 
loved ones there were no longer His special care. 
With the sorrow of leave-taking he crosses the plain, 
and seeks the fords of the Jordan, where John is 
baptising and preaching. As He goes on His jour¬ 
ney, from the solitude of the mountains and desert, 
He gains inspiration step by step. The thirty years 
of quietness are about to speak. His training is com¬ 
plete, and in His own humble assurance He seeks the 
new prophet. 

John the Baptist and Jesus were cousins, but they 
had probably not known each other as boys and young 
men. It is doubtful if they had ever met in recent 
years, for John had been a man of the desert and 
Jesus had lived a quiet life at home. John did not 
recognise Him as a relative, nor as the Messiah, but 
with a keen eye and exact insight, he saw at once 
purity and sinlessness. The nature that could see 
behind the pretended professionalism of Scribe and 
Pharisee, saw here what was genuine. The tongue that 
fearlessly and unsparingly rebuked them as a “genera¬ 
tion of vipers,” and asked them “who had warned” 
them “to flee from the wrath to come,” bowed in utter 
humility before One, Whose pure and holy life silenced 
him, save to say: “I have need to be baptised of Thee, 


THE SUBMISSIVE LIFE 197 

and comest Thou to me?” “Suffer it now,” said 
Jesus. These two men now incarnated a new mission 
of service and consecration. 

What a marvellous Baptism this was. 

See them as they step into the Jordan. There is no 
confession of sin in this baptism. There is no sin. 
John is baptising with water the One Who is to baptise 
with the Holy Ghost and with fire. The multitude on 
cither bank is stilled with wonder and amazement. 
Who is this Stranger ? His very face attracts and wins. 

After the sacred rite, as Jesus same up from the 
water, the “heavens were opened unto Him and He 
saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and 
lighting upon Him, and lo! a voice from heaven, say¬ 
ing, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased.’ ” Then immediately, Mark tells us, “The 
Spirit driveth Him into the wilderness.” Then His 
temptation. 

Our text reveals the complete self-surrender of Jesus 
and of John. The nature of Jesus actually revolted 
against sin; He had lived those thirty years in abhor¬ 
rence of it. The baptism of John meant repentance 
and confession and rejection of sin. Jesus knew no 
sin. Yet He was willing to be baptised by one who 
knew sin, and thereby to be judged by a sinning multi¬ 
tude as one who also was a sinner, to be “numbered 
with the transgressors.” Even John rebelled. But 
Jesus saw beyond the present event, forgetful of self- 
righteousness as He saw the sins of the human race. 
“Suffer it” was His word, the word that overcame even 
the scruples of the Baptist. Self was surrendered. It 
was the same spirit which led Him to say later, “Never- 


198 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

theless, not my will, but Thine.” The great Divine plan 
of salvation may not have been clearly and completely 
outlined in His chaste mind at this time, but the voice 
of one crying in the wilderness had called Him from 
that Nazareth home to His life work. Yet there was 
no self-assertiveness. 

As John affirmed, “I have need to be baptised of 
Thee,” He could have truthfully asserted Himself, and 
the words of this prophet would have been verified, for 
John had said repeatedly, “l am not that prophet. I 
am but a voice crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the 
way of the Lord, make his paths straight/ There 
cometh One mightier than I; I am not worthy to 
unlbose His shoes. He shall baptise you with the Holy 
Ghost and with fire.” But no, He would not assert 
Himself. This was not His Father's plan. “Suffer it 
now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteous¬ 
ness.” Self should not control: He was surrendered 
unconditionally to the Father's will. He had come to 
do that will, and His whole being was responsive. 

John’s self-surrender was manifest also. The simple 
word of Jesus was enough. It is hard for a true 
genuine life to submit silently when overestimated. 
Something within revolts. The propriety of fulfilling 
all righteousness was the explanation with which Jesus 
turned John’s thoughts from self. Self had little hold 
on this hero of the desert at best. From early child¬ 
hood he had denied himself. Sacrifice had become his 
daily soul-food. His body he had kept under. But 
this was a new test. He did not know Jesus as the 
Christ. His own testimony is, “I knew Him not, but 
He that sent me to baptise with water, the same said 


THE SUBMISSIVE LIFE 


199 


■unto me, ‘Upon Whom thou shalt see the Spirit 
descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He 
which baptiseth with the Holy Ghost/ And I saw and 
bare record that this is the Son of God.” 

Before that divine sign had been given, John saw the 
pure sinless face, and knew that this was no subject for 
baptism; yet at His command, he yielded. Self would 
not assert itself. His was a holy life. He had early 
learned to give up. Giving up self is always a remark¬ 
able test of true piety. How many earnest Christians 
have never learned this precious lesson, and what sad 
consequences the Church has suffered! So often in the 
midst of duty, when we know we are in the right, the 
Nazarene says softly, “Suffer it now,” but we hear not, 
or heed not, His voice, and there is no fulfilling of 
righteousness, no heavenly vision, and no Father’s 
voice; hence, we do not bear record of the Son of God. 

Could we but learn to give up self at once life’s tests 
would develop our character and we would control con¬ 
ditions for God. 

Quickly John yielded; yielded against that which he 
felt must be right; yielded against his own best judg¬ 
ment,—but in yielding became a part of God’s all- 
glorious plan, and received in that very hour the mani¬ 
festation of his Messiah. Self-surrender is no mere 
happy ideal, but must be a daily, hourly reality in the 
life of every one of us. Giving up is the hardest of all 
our Christian duties; but what results would come if 
we would listen to the Saviour’s “Suffer it now.” 

The “I will’s” and “I won’ts” have been the hidden 
rocks that have wrecked many a noble vessel on life’s 
sea. A surrendered life is a fife where self is lost ill- 


200 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

service, a service in which all is subject to the sweet 
will of God—our wills lost in His. 

This self-surrender emphasises the important, and 
leaves the unimportant. Righteousness must be ful¬ 
filled. To show the worthiness of Jesus or of John in 
this symbol of baptism was not comparable in impor¬ 
tance to the fulfilling of righteousness. Formality 
would have said, “No, I will not baptise Thee; Thou 
must baptise me.” But formality is not to hold first 
place. Prophecy would have been broken. There 
would have been no declaration. The multitudes would 
have been confounded; God’s plan would not have been 
carried out. When form robs worship of the Saviour’s 
individual word and direction, then the Church of God 
is robbed of power, for there is no vision and no assur¬ 
ance. The great essentials of truth must never give 
way to the mere technicalities of form, no matter how 
beautiful and blessed they may be. This applies equally 
to us as individuals. How often we lose life’s real 
worth because we demand that which may be proper 
and right, but which is really of very little vital im¬ 
portance. There was something far greater than form 
or ceremonial here. We defend and demand it as if 
without it life would not be worth living, and all the 
time it is of little or no value. We refuse to comply 
with certain conditions unless minor details exactly 
suit us. Numerous opportunities for development and 
widened friendship go by default, because of our 
deference to unimportant customs, or our fear of 
slight criticism. The function of state which would 
increase our influence and reveal our courteous atten- 


THE SUBMISSIVE LIFE 201 

tion is not attended because we do not possess a new 
suit. 

The force of our own inconsistency in this particular 
is repeatedly seen in the relationship of our business 
to the home. Many a man is so eager and strenuous 
in his business interests that his home holds last place 
in his practical affections. That boy of yours is only 
a child now; in twenty years he will be a man and a 
citizen. Business so absorbs your time that you do not 
know what he is reading, with whom he is playing, and 
little or nothing about the school which he attends ; to 
say nothing of the character of the teachers who in¬ 
struct him. He only gets an occasional glimpse of you, 
and then knows you as one who exerts parental author¬ 
ity. He may read books which are not worthy the 
name of literature. We ought as parents to know 
what our children read, and with whom they play. 

Just here let me warn you that that realistic school 
of fiction which is telling us to-day that it is necessary 
to show all the blackness and horrors of sin to the 
youth that he may guard against it, is not only a false 
school, but is dangerous and wicked in its results. The 
curious and eager youth longs to test that about which 
he reads, and through the influence of such reading he 
sees life’s day under a cloud and in a storm, instead of 
gaining the inspiration and clear vision of the pure 
sunshine. 

Know something, then, of the books which your boy 
reads; meet his playmates and take a few hours to play 
with them if possible, and thus keep the boy alive in 
yourself. Visit his school, know his teacher, and let 


202 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

her know your home. This will emphasise the impor¬ 
tance in home training; for, after all, if by making 
your business the all-important and this the unimpor¬ 
tant, you leave that boy even millions of money, and 
do not leave him character, that which you have accu¬ 
mulated for him will probably prove his ruin. 

It may be impossible for you to attain to your ideal 
in the large and complete development of your business, 
if you pay proper attention to your home, but “suffer it 
to be so now." “Is not the life more than meat? the 
body than raiment ?" Is not the character of your home 
and child the fulfilment of righteousness, which is most 
becoming and wise? Is not quality more than quan¬ 
tity ? What your boy has is the unimportant; what he 
is, the important. 

Self-surrender is seen also in Jesus' desire to live in 
harmony with God’s entire plan. He was not willing 
to act independently. We see this in His expression, 
“to fulfil all righteousness." To accomplish this He 
was a part of the great whole. He Who is all in all 
took upon Himself the form of a servant; the One who 
was to work out the salvation of all men in His own 
personal sacrifice and that others might do their part. 
He did not say to John, “It becometh me to fulfil all 
righteousness," but, “It becometh us." He would work 
with others. He would have John feel that his work 
was ended relatively when the Holy Spirit manifested 
to him the Messiahship of Jesu9. 

During those weeks of trial which followed, and in 
the silent, patient suffering of that lonely prison, he was 
comforted in the consciousness of this very fact, that 
all was a part of God’s plan. Together with Jesus, he 


203 


THE SUBMISSIVE LIFE 

was still “fulfilling all righteousness,” although Jesus 
was now preaching repentance, and his own voice was 
silenced. Co-operation is God’s rule, not monopoly; 
interdenominationalism, not sectarianism. Christian 
loyalty has no narrow definition, for the God Who loves 
us, and the denomination in which we worship, loves 
the world. 

The self-surrender of Jesus led Him to conform to 
the unnecessary, because He saw the necessity of others. 
By so doing, He affirmed the power of example. Why 
should the Pure One be baptised ? Why ? Because He 
remembered the prophetic words of the holy Isaiah, 
“Come now, and let us reason together—though your 
sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; 
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. ,, 

He began to do and to teach. The public confession 
has always been an offence to some Christians. “Why 
unite with the Church of Christ? There are other 
ways of confessing Him. My life is consistent; the 
Golden Rule has become my rule of living; the teaching 
of Jesus my daily precept and practice. Very many 
within the Church have no such standard, and are in¬ 
considerate and careless.” All this is undoubtedly true, 
and yet no life to-day can consider itself consistent or 
pure when paralleled with the life of Jesus, and He 
let John baptise Him. “I have need to be baptised of 
Thee, and comest Thou to me?” “Suffer it,” was the 
response, “it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” 
The Church of Jesus Christ is a divine institution. By 
confessing Him and uniting with His Church, we 
admit our own unworthiness and His all-sufficient re¬ 
demptive love. It i 9 not our mission or privilege to 


204 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

judge others, the hypocrite came even to the baptism of 
John, but his attitude and inconsistency had no influ¬ 
ence in deterring Jesus from fulfilling all righteousness. 
For Him to have stood apart would have turned the 
attention of men from the theme of John, “Repent and 
be baptised,” and countless ones who needed this teach¬ 
ing and confession would have continued in unrepented 
sin. The responsibility of a Christian man is not 
simply that of the deed which he performs, but of the 
attitude which he assumes to Christian institutions and 
customs. Example is not alone related to the negative 
command, “Thou shalt not,” as seen in those words, 
“If meat cause my brother to offend, I will eat no 
meat,” for Christ’s word and example were positive, 
“Suffer it ... it becometh us to fulfil all righteous¬ 
ness.” 

We see the result of the self-surrender in the vision 
seen by Jesus and John alone. As Jesus faced the fiery 
temptation of the wilderness immediately after, and as 
John went on in his wonderful preaching until the 
usurping power of a sinful monarch imprisoned him, 
how constantly they saw again the spiritual vision 
which revealed Christ’s deity! Hear John as he speaks 
to those early apostles: “Behold the Lamb of God 
which taketh away the sins of the world!” To hear 
him speak was to heed him, for we read: “They heard 
him speak and followed Jesus.” 

The Christian with the soul-vision of the Christ has 
a power which the world cannot have. Intellectuality, 
scholarship, genius, marvel at the simplicity of this 
gift. It wins, it draws, it converts. 


THE SUBMISSIVE LIFE 


205 


“Like some bright dream that comes unsought, 

When slumbers o’er me roll, 

Thine image ever fills my thought, 

And cheers my ravished soul.” 

From this time on John verified his words. “He 
must increase, but I must decrease. ,, But the decrease 
of John meant not only the increase of Christ, but 
John’s increased vision of the Christ. Self-surrender 
was like the closing of John’s eyes upon the things of 
self, only that he might open them upon the realities of 
Jesus Christ his Messiah. 

The words of our text teach us finally most forcibly 
that the life of self-surrender ultimately results in the 
right adjustment of all things. Christ’s word “now,” 
“suffer it now,” suggests or implies a temporary con- 
di ion. The “now” points to a “then.” How closely 
related are those words of Paul, “Now we see through 
a glass darkly, but even face to face; now we know in 
part, then we shall know even as also we are known.” 

What wonderful characters stand before us in the 
“now.” Jesus the Christ and John the Baptist, the one 
of whom Christ said, “None greater is born of women,” 
but these were the temporary days; this the temporary 
scene; this the “now.” Christ’s eternal “then” is 
heaven; the real life of John the Baptist, a life for 
eternity. The “then” of our lives was a synonym of 
forever. 

Considering this, is it strange that the quiet voice of 
the Master replied to John, “Never mind for now; 
permit this sacred rite to be carried out; I do not ques¬ 
tion your right or justice in the matter, but give up, 
‘suffer it now.’ The present arrangement is in accord 


206 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

with my Father's plan, and by conforming together we 
fulfil the righteous judgment of His will.” 

John did not discuss the matter. Why should we fill 
our hearts and minds with unprofitable discussion as 
to life's rights and wrongs; life’s failures or successes; 
the mysteries of an unseen Hand? Why fret over the 
uneven distribution of wealth; the sudden disaster, or 
the misplaced confidence ? All this is the “now” of life. 
“Suffer it,” the adjustment is sure and absolute. “All 
things work together for good to them that love God.” 

The life surrendered to His will may see to-day 
nothing but disorder and confusion, but a never-erring 
Hand is guiding and will transform this chao9 into 
order. 

“Careless seems the great avenger. 

History’s pages but record 
One death grapple in the darkness 
’Twixt old systems and the Word; 

Truth forever on the scaffold, 

Wrong forever on the throne, 

Yet that scaffold sways the future 
And behind the dim unknown 
Standeth God within the shadow 
Keeping watch above His own.” 

The story is told of a little lad who had just learned 
his letters. His father overheard him praying as he 
kneeled by his little bed. After asking God to hear 
him, he began going over his letters, “A, B, C, D,” and 
then quietly closed his prayer. The father asked him 
what he meant, and the response quickly came, “I don’t 
know just what I want, but God knows, and He will 


THE SUBMISSIVE LIFE 207 

put the letters together, for He knows me and every¬ 
thing.” 

What a picture of simple faith and divine adjust¬ 
ment! We, too, are little children. All life's experi¬ 
ences are but the alphabet of the great realities of 
eternal language. “Except ye be converted and become 
as little children,” . . . 

Let us leave then the spelling out of life's great 
eternal plan to Him Who knows everything and every 
one. We misspell and misquote and disarrange. But 
this is the “now,” His final adjustment will correct., 
Thus the self-adjustment will be correct. Thus the 
self-surrendered life is the simple life, the quiet, truth¬ 
ful life, perchance the lonely life; but, “suffer it to be 
so now: for so it becometh us to fulfil all righteous¬ 
ness,” 


XIX 


FAITH ESTABLISHED 

“That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of 
men, but in the power of God.”— I Corinthians 215. 

The text of our thought this morning is in the 
Epistle of Paul to the Church of Corinth, second chap¬ 
ter, fifth verse. We cannot have an objective service 
in this world unless we have a subjective faith. There 
cannot be a general truth recognised by the general 
public, unless there is a specific leader and an indi¬ 
vidual who incarnates that truth. 

One of the great difficulties which modern thought is 
seeking to solve is this subtle so-called philosophy which 
is undermining the individual in leadership, and is 
seeking to make goodness a cult instead of a being. 

Goodness is God. There is no goodness without 
God. There is no virtue unless some one is virtuous. 
There is no character unless there is an individual. 
There is no faith without a being. Paul did not say, 
“I know what I believe.” A great many times he did 
not know what he believed, but he said, “I know whom 
I have believed,” and the whom led him to the what. 

The love of wisdom is the love of the author of 
wisdom. “The fear of the Lord (that word fear has 
the essence of worship in it) is the beginning of wis¬ 
dom.” Without God we cannot know the “what.” The 
208 


FAITH ESTABLISHED 209 

philosophy of life must centre in the embodiment of 
life. “In Him was life and the life was the light of 
men.” “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among 
us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only 
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” 

A religion without a life is a body without a spine; a 
heart without a brain. There must be life and “In Him 
was life.” 

There is great need of a return to this truth, a re¬ 
establishment of faith in the Infinite God, and as we 
have faith in Him we will have faith in that which He 
represents and incarnates, and we will have faith in 
Him who became man that He might reveal God, for 
“He was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld 
his glory.” 

Our text is the thought of a great philosopher, for 
Paul with all his practical interpretation of life was a 
man who thought far and thought deeply. There was 
no surface thinking in Paul's life. He had been a 
follower of Jehovah, but not a follower of Jesus of 
Nazareth. He did all he could to destroy the influence 
of Jesus of Nazareth, until on that Damascus Highway 
he was arrested in his course and led to know Christ. 

But Paul was always a good man. Paul was always 
a God-man. He said, “I have lived in all good con¬ 
science before God until this day,” and the man who 
knew God was the man who saw God revealed in 
Christ. He said, “My prayer is that your faith should 
not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of 
God.” “When in the wisdom of God the world by 
wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolish¬ 
ness of preaching to save them that believe.” Now that 


210 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

is quoted a good many times this way: “When in the 
wisdom of men the world by wisdom knew not God, it 
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save 
them that believe.” This is a popular misquotation of 
scripture, and I have heard ministers of the Gospel use 
it and have seen it in print, but it is wrong. “When in 
the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not 
God.” 

Now man’s wisdom would have let men find God by 
human wisdom, and it does so to-day, and seeks to lead 
men to God by human wisdom, but it utterly fails. 
Sometimes it lasts a generation; sometimes more, but 
not long. It has none of that promoting, propagating 
power which extends from generation to generation. 

The test of a great faith is that it is reproducing. 
One of our great scientists when asked to define life 
said: “Life is that which has the power of reproduc¬ 
tion within itself.” A great faith has the same condi¬ 
tion, and a faith which is man-born does not last, and 
oh, how foolish, “like sheep going astray,” a great 
share of the world has been in this very error! People 
have sought to follow man-devised faith. “When in 
the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, 
it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save 
them that believe.” 

Now why? The moment an individual, a human, 
has a sense of his own knowledge and the worth of that 
knowledge, he becomes self-dependable upon his own 
thinking. He begins to be an egotist. The less we 
know about a subject, the more proud we are of our 
knowledge. The more we know, the more humble we 
become. A lad in his first year in college on a certain 


FAITH ESTABLISHED 


211 


spring morning, when he goes out and fills his lungs 
and looks at the growing verdure about him, may say 
to himself—“What a wonderful thing to be educated,” 
but a humble man will go out and look at the ant at 
his feet and say, “How like the ant I am in the incom¬ 
prehensibility of great truths.” The best men in the 
world have been the men who did not think they were 
good. Paul said he was the chiefest of sinners, but we 
know he really was not; but, some one who does not 
touch the hem of his garment in character, says: “Be¬ 
hold, I have attained perfection.” 

This is not mere cynicism; it is a recognised fact 
that the more we know humanly, the more egotistical 
we become, and the more satisfied with self. The less 
we know, the more we seem to know. The more we 
know, the less we know we know. It takes a great 
mind and a great man to realise how little the scope 
of his own knowledge and piety may be. 

Now, if it depended upon our own knowledge and 
character, we would become profound egotists, and the 
world would follow the man who could demonstrate 
that he knew the most and was the best. But, wisdom 
goes farther. Wisdom is not mere knowledge. Who 
wants to live with a walking encyclopedia? What 
college chair to-day wants a professor who simply is an 
authority and nothing else? Wisdom is acting knowl¬ 
edge, and knowledge acting aright. Wisdom is the 
human expression of knowledge in the worthy service 
of to-day. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
wisdom.” “But when in the wisdom (the acting 
knowledge) of God the world by wisdom knew not 


212 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to 
save them that believe.” 

What is the foolishness of preaching? The mere 
repetition of a story? Yes, the story of a Life; the 
story of a sacrifice; the story of a holy emotion which 
becomes the incarnation of purity, of sacrifice and 
love, hence devotion itself, and in the preaching of that 
Gospel men find God! and finding God they know the 
truth! and knowing the truth, they live the life of 
truth and become men of power; hence, we cannot 
demonstrate in the wisdom of man, but in the power of 
God. 

Now we know that human ability and human power 
do not always go together. A man may have superb 
power of human thought in his own comprehension, 
and still have very little with his fellow-men. Power 
and ability are not synonyms, but where a great truth 
dominates a life it makes that life great. The world 
may laugh at first, but the world will not continue to 
laugh. 

A great scientific weekly spoke of the absurdity in 
such a theory as flying in the air, but that was thirty 
years ago. Men have been hissed from the stage of life 
because of their ambition for a great truth, and men 
have laughed, but that great truth has frequently at¬ 
tained. Belief has controlled this world; it creates 
faith and makes men what they are. This church is 
not merely a church of religious devotion, unless it is a 
church of a living faith. 

There is no religious faith that is worth its definition 
to-day that does not solve the great problems of God’s 
undying love as it is related to His omnipotent justice. 


FAITH ESTABLISHED 213 

“Be sure your sins will find you out.” “The soul that 
sinneth it shall die.” The condemnation of evil alone 
can prepare the way for a salvation based on love and 
forgiveness. A philosophy of love that leaves out 
God’s justice is a dishonour. There is no faith in the 
fatherhood of God save in the realisation of God’s 
undying divine love. The greatness of this truth drives 
the man of egotism and mere intellectuality away from 
God. “When in the wisdom of God the world by 
wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolish¬ 
ness of preaching to save them that believe.” 

It is the sublime element that saves, because it sees 
and knows the sacrifice that must be made in atone¬ 
ment for sin. It satisfies the justice of God by the 
sacrifice of One who has paid the price of sin. That is 
the meaning of the Cross. 

In a single word let us summarise and get this truth. 
We need to-day, as much as we have ever needed 
before, the faith that stands in the power of God instead 
of in the wisdom of man. We need the re-establish¬ 
ment of the faith of our fathers. Everywhere we read 
—whether in the secular press or in the so-called 
religious press (there is no secular nor religious as 
Kingsley has so well said) ; whether men are writing 
in Paris or in Belgium, in London or in Pekin—that 
what the world needs and must have to-day is a wisdom 
of God which comes from the saving power of Jesus 
Christ. A great Buddhist teacher has just said this: 
“Our own religion has utterly failed to solve the prob¬ 
lem of the bleeding heart.” The world needs a faith 
re-established which is demonstrating itself in the 
power of God, as revealed in Jesus Christ. 


214 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

A friend recently wrote from one of the great cities 
of the world: “When I walk through the avenues and 
streets of this great city, I see a great hunger and a 
great anguish for something that is stable and sure.” 
Yes, the world to-day needs the faith that is incarnated 
in a life—the life of the Son of God. The preaching 
of the Cross may be to the mere scholastic “foolish¬ 
ness,” but unto those who are saved, it is the power of 
God. That verse means more than unto the “saved.” 
It is translated “those who are being saved”—not the 
accomplished fact, the present action. It is a present 
salvation; it is the power of God unto a present 
salvation. 

It all means that this old world needs Christ. Chris¬ 
tianity has too often taken the place of Christ; the 
church has too often taken the place of religion. What 
the world needs is the Christ, the Cross, Salvation, and 
a Faith which can say what Paul wrote in his letter to 
Corinth, not only, that “Your faith should not stand in 
the wisdom of man, but in the power of God;” but say 
as well, “I know whom I have believed,” and I am will¬ 
ing to commit unto Him the present and the future, and 
to live and champion His life, as I incarnate and estab¬ 
lish faith in Him. 

My dear people, we are to meet later this morning at 
the Communion Table of our Lord. Why? That we 
may see again, and feel again, and know again the 
power of God in our very lives. This is not in the 
wisdom of men. “The fear of Jehovah is the begin¬ 
ning of wisdom.” Let us sit at His feet and learn of 
Him that we may be able to live and serve in the power 
of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 


XX 


YESTERDAY, TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW* 

“The latter glory of this house shall be greater 
than the former, saith Jehovah of hosts; and in this 
place will I give peace.”— Haggai 2:9. 

“Only be strong and very courageous, to observe to 
do according to all the law, which Moses, my servant, 
commanded thee; turn not from it to the right hand 
or to the left, that thou mayest have good success 
whithersoever thou goest.”— Joshua 2 \j. 

Our theme this morning is “Yesterday, To-day and 
To-morrow.” The references in the Old Testament 
signify that prophecy means peace, and that God’s 
voice in admonition means command. Thus prophecy 
and command are closely related to peace and blessing. 

Eight great subjects are suggested in our two texts: 
Memory associated with blessing and peace; then we 
see strength , then courage, then obedience, then faith¬ 
fulness, and all crowned with success. “The latter 
glory of this house shall be greater than the former, 
and in this place will I give peace.” “Only be strong 
and of good courage, yes, very courageous, to observe 
to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, 
commanded thee; turn not from it to the right hand or 
to the left, that thou mayest have good success whither¬ 
soever thou goest.” 

* (Fiftieth Anniversary Sermon, Fourth Presbyterian Church, 
Sunday morning, February 13, 1921.) 

215 


216 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

It is not enough to associate the past with the per¬ 
sonal or even the general experiences to which our 
minds revert at such a time as this. Our heritage is not 
a museum, neither a mere accumulation; nor is it sim¬ 
ply past deeds, nor hallowed associations. True mem¬ 
ory has to do with influences which have been, and as 
we look back we realise that “others have laboured and 
we have entered into their labours.” 

On such an occasion as this there are many reasons 
why we should give our time almost exclusively to the 
associations of the past, but Dr. McClure has accepted 
for this afternoon the privilege and responsibility of 
thus associating us in memory with the past. 

There is also in our hearts at such a time an appre¬ 
ciation of the continued blessings of God, for “Paul 
may plant and Apollos water, but God must give the 
increase.” “Except the Lord build the house, they 
labour in vain who build it.” The blessings of God, as 
He has attended this house and this society and the 
church’s organisation throughout these fifty years, have 
been recognised, and have been known, not perhaps 
estimated by the cold statistics of figures, or valued 
fully at all times during the process of our develop¬ 
ment, but as we look back we say the blessings of God 
have been upon us, and these hallowed memories are 
associated with the consciousness, as well as the record, 
of God’s blessing, hence we are at peace. 

The God who has sustained will sustain. No matter 
what the anxiety of life may be, the consciousness that 
the God of all this earth is looking down upon His 
church to bless, strengthen, comfort and develop is 
ours, and we are at peace. 


YESTERDAY, TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 217 

The characteristics which grow out of these facts 
are worthy also of our thought. There are four: 
Strength, Courage, Faithfulness, Success. 

God gave His people, through Moses, the law which 
they were to obey, and from which they were not to 
swerve to the right hand nor to the left in their exact 
faithfulness in adhering thereto. 

If then the memories of the hour give to us increas¬ 
ingly a consciousness of God’s blessing, resulting in 
peace, we should cherish as well these four admonitions 
which God has given to us. 

We are to be strong; we are to be courageous (and 
such courage means to “attempt great things for God,” 
realising His faith in us as far greater than our faith 
in Him), and with this courage which is not daunted 
by new enterprise, nor new endeavour, we should 
realise that obedience must result, for obeying His law 
must be the fundamental principle of our faithfulness. 
We err at times to think that God’s blessing and His 
peace can attend the people of this age if He is not in 
their enthusiasm; if His strength of personality is not 
in their courage of enterprise. They forget that obe¬ 
dience to God’s law is primary, and faithful obedience. 
No substitute for religion which disregards the laws of 
God, the fundamental principles of righteousness, can 
ever receive God’s recognition and His peace and bless¬ 
ings.” 

Religion is not the expression of man’s desire toward 
God. It is the will of man to carry out the purpose 
and law of God. It is the law of God; it is the right¬ 
eousness of truth; it is the morality that accepts the true 
and loyal development of the home and the vows 


218 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

thereof. It is the recognition of God’s law in the spirit 
of reverence and worship, that honours God’s day as a 
day to be preserved for the worship of the Almighty 
as the race worships the Divine God, and only can God 
honour the people with blessings, when such obedience 
is a matter of faithfulness. 

This leads to success—the success of God, the success 
which is permanent, and every man must choose for 
himself. 

“To every man there openeth 
A way, and ways and a way, 

And the high soul climbs the high way 
And the low soul gropes the low, 

And in between, on the misty flats, 

The rest drift to and fro; 

But to every man there openeth 
A high way and a low. 

And every man decideth 
The way his soul shall go.” 

And God has given to us this law of love which with 
strength and courage and faithfulness leads to the 
success on the high way which is God’s way—the way 
of vision and future blessing. 

It would not be right for us this morning to take 
time for the mere figures of reminiscence or statistics 
of success. They sometimes speak other than the 
truth. Statistics do not always reveal the exact con¬ 
dition. It is not wise for us to repeat a large number 
of them to which you would listen patiently and forget 
immediately, but it is enough to say that God has 
signally remembered this church throughout the years. 
Fifty, more or less, have entered into Christian min¬ 
istry. About the same number have gone into mission- 


YESTERDAY, TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 219 

ary work, abroad and at home. We cannot give the 
exact figures, for in many instances they have been 
related with us to student life. Of the thousands of 
men and women who have united with this church 
upon confession of faith and by letter, some have gone 
to almost every country, either in some form of 
Christian service or in matters of business enterprise 
or educational work. Our sons and daughters have 
gone to every state in the Union, especially centring 
in the great west and far west. We have heard from 
many of them at this time, expressing the joy they 
have felt in this anniversary. We cannot read these 
letters without realising' that a greater number of 
unwritten letters and unspoken greetings come from 
the hearts of those who have worshipped here.. The 
record of the many faithful men and women who have 
made this church what it has become has been care¬ 
fully brought to our memory during the many meet¬ 
ings of this past week, and will be a matter of record 
in the Fourth Church monthly publication for Feb¬ 
ruary. 

It would be wrong for us, with the vast number, to 
call especial attention even to the few whose lives have 
meant so much to this church. It is seldom that a 
church has so few of its ministers who can be present 
to greet you. Would to God one of your former 
pastors might be in my place this morning and give to 
you his association of the past, but only two of the 
regular pastors of the church are living—Dr. M. Wool- 
sey Stryker, who is in the south and unable to be 
present, and Dr. Thomas Hall, professor of a univer¬ 
sity in Germany. We have been led in the past by 


220 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

men of noble purpose in life, who have spoken with 
truth and earnestness. Truly, “others have laboured 
and we have entered into their labours.” 

It scarcely seems to me possible that I have served 
longer than any other pastor. No one knows better 
than I the failures and weaknesses rf the work, be¬ 
cause one knows his own heart best, but no one knows 
better than I the joy of working with such a people, 
and giving one’s life to such a task and such a future. 

Perhaps we should turn from the past, save as I 
would like to read to you the linking of the past to the 
present, and the present to the future—the yesterday 
with the to-day; the to-day with the to-morrow. 

This past week I have gone over carefully many 
hundreds of letters which came to me twelve years ago, 
for in the providence of God I am nearly completing 
my twelfth year as your pastor. Among those letters 
some came with vital force. I want to read from one 
or two of them: 

“The church needs a leader who knows God, who 
believes in and uses prayer, who believes in the inspira¬ 
tion of the Bible, in the sin of man, the need of a 
Saviour, and the power of the Holy Ghost. Given 
such a man, who has received a Divine call to the 
ministry from the Lord Jesus Christ, who stands in the 
pulpit as His representative to declare His message, 
rather than to please the congregation, and I am sure 
a spiritual revolution would take place in the church 
and throughout the length and breadth of the North 
Side. This is the local problem. 

“Then there is the great city which sadly needs 
Jesus Christ. There are but 220,000 members of the 


YESTERDAY, TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 221 

Evangelical churches out of 2,500,000 of people—not 
many, but enough properly led and equipped, to make 
the people know of the love of God for them. They 
are not coming into the churches—but few of the 
churches are going out to them; so new plans are to be 
formed, new methods are to be adopted, and new 
leaders raised up. This is a mighty work, needing 
men like you. Chicago dominates the Mississippi Val¬ 
ley commercially. Its influence reaches up to the 
Canadian border, to the Pacific Ocean, and to the Gulf 
of Mexico. As Chicago moves, so moves the west. 
Its position in a business way is what it should be in a 
religious way. Shall it occupy this foremost place for 
Jesus Christ, or shall the influence that goes out from 
it be worldly, selfish and sordid? Who can answer 
the question? Is this God’s call to you?” 

I look back through those twelve years, realising how 
little has been done relatively to reach such an ideal, 
but I look with gratitude that in the providence of God 
I was called to work with you in so brave and so noble 
a task. The pastorate is associated with blessings 
which cannot be enumerated, and I shall not try. 

But what of the present ? Of the to-day! Yesterday 
brings to us a responsibility. How little we antici¬ 
pated twelve years ago, or even six or seven years ago, 
the conditions through which we were to pass. 
What of the present? The hardest time in all, as we 
read history, is the time following the war. The war 
itself has the thrill and the burst of life and the 
enthusiasm and pressure of unique and single purpose, 
but after the war! It is like those days when fever has 
broken and the physical has been disintegrated and 


222 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

weakened by the heating of the fire of the disease, and 
the physician, all calmly and wisely, and the nurse, all 
patiently, keeps others from the patient. Will the 
heart hold out? Will the body be strong enough? 
Will the spirit and the will have strength enough and 
ambition to cope with the physical weakness and weari¬ 
ness and pain ? 

The reconstruction period, as we call it, is the hard¬ 
est of all. Why should we be troubled because in the 
midst of the great ocean, the world and its inhabitants 
seems troubled. Let us leave behind the swelling tides 
and this condition of turmoil. Why should we forget 
the past with its glorious on-mark and its future goal, 
just because we live in a day of uneasiness and diffi¬ 
culty? No, hearts of men are stronger, and lives look 
out afresh, and a nobler, holier purpose inspires those 
who trust God. 

You and I have never had such opportunities as at 
present. What did Victor Hugo say about France 
after the French revolution? We get from his pen 
and his philosophy a condition of enthusiasm to hold 
on and to make the nation stand in its adjustment. 
Why does he picture that little group of alert minds, 
from all types of the people—the poor, the rich, the 
philosopher, the graduate of the university—meeting 
alone in that back room in Paris, simply to work out as 
youth some of the trying problems that seem to be the 
collapse of civilisation? No, they are searching for the 
foundations and building upon them. 

Only the weakling to-day is ignoring and evading 
the problems of the moment. 

This is so in religion as it is in law, in medicine, in 


YESTERDAY, TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 223 

pedagogy, as in the halls of Congress or in the rela¬ 
tionships of great international problems. The weak¬ 
ling says: “I do not believe anything.” The weakling 
says: “I have lost my foundation, I do not believe in 
society. I do not believe in the church.” Yes, and you 
are a weakling, but the problem of the hour is to stand 
firm on the rock foundation, and facing the past, gain¬ 
ing from it the present opportunity, bare your breast 
to the foe and give your life to the future in the testing 
of the hour. 

“New occasions teach new duties; 

Time makes ancient good uncouth; 

They must upward still, and onward, 

Who would keep abreast of truth ; 

Lo, before us gleam her campfires! 

We ourselves must Pilgrims be, 

Launch our Mayflower, 

And steer boldly through the desperate winter sea; 

Nor attempt the future's portal with the past’s 
blood-rusted key,” 

Oh, the power of the present when the ambition of 
the soul reaches out into the chaos, and grasps not at a 
straw, but strikes out boldly to swim! 

The present is the test of character. It is easy to 
give one’s self entirely to your selfish task, saying 
society can get on without you, your church can meet 
the problems and adjustments in her own way. That is 
the answer of the selfish coward; of the man of small 
and sordid life. Such men are not willing to meet the 
conditions of to-day with the same purpose and spirit 
with which they met the problems of the nation and 
the world. The spirit of Christ inspires one onward 
and challenges to the best. 


224 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

Be angry if you will at this. This is the test of your 
character. If your anger strands you where you are, 
you will stay there, but if you will respond and face 
the problems and needs of the hour with a hopeful, 
earnest, strong and courageous soul, and set yourself 
to the tasks which are ours and mutually yours, you 
are then made of the stuff that has made the nation 
strong, and your age and your God will give their 
amen to a life that shows willingness to serve. 

What of the future? I want to bring thoughtfully 
before you in the spirit of faith and courage, some 
seven matters which have appealed to me as necessary 
for this church to consider. They may not appeal to 
you as they do to me. I may be wrong, and in all 
probability I am wrong in some of them, but I am not 
prejudiced, insistent nor dogmatic. I am here to serve 
and you are here to serve. These suggestions, how¬ 
ever, are not the result of the preparation of this anni¬ 
versary sermon, although they have centred there; they 
are the result of years of thinking in a tent at the battle 
front. 

It is necessary for a pastor to-day to be more than a 
pastor. He must think and study often into the mid¬ 
night hour if he is to lead others in thought and pur¬ 
pose. He must be in the street, by day, and in the 
homes where there is need among the people. He 
must know something of the problems of administra¬ 
tion that he may properly guide those who co-operate 
with him. His duties are complex, but constant, and 
his soul and mind must have a vision which constructs 
itself into a plan. 

The first grave problem which faces the immediate 


YESTERDAY, TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 225 

future in this church is our relationship to the children. 
The children of the church (the church at large, as well 
as our own), are not attending divine worship, and if 
children do not form the habit of church attendance, 
men and women will not be led to attend, in large 
number in future years. In many instances there are 
reasons for it. Some say the Bible school is a substi¬ 
tute. It is not. It is the training school, but not 
primarily the place of worship. The child needs wor¬ 
ship, and if you leave out the worship instinct, it will 
result sadly for the future. 

Our own church has here a real problem. This 
congregation is not a strange congregation, although 
many friends are here this morning. Our church is 
filled. It is so constantly. There does not seem to be 
room for the children, but the children must attend. 
Making a careful study for some years of the children's 
sermons in connection with the Sunday morning ser¬ 
mon in many churches, having practised it and experi¬ 
enced its influence, I do not believe, generally speaking, 
that it is a wise policy. The child forms the habit of 
going out during the service; adults are a little restless 
during the children's sermon, for only about one man 
in ten (perhaps this is a low percentage) can preach a 
children’s sermon in such a way as to be helpful to both 
child and adult. 

We have taken action, as a Session, this morning, 
and have decided to begin next Sunday morning a 
Junior Church, which will be held at eleven o’clock, in 
parallelism with this service, in our lecture room. One 
of the associate ministers of the church will conduct 
that service. I plan to go in during the service to keep 


226 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

in touch with it as pastor. Members of the choir will 
have charge of the music; the hymns of the church will 
be sung and the church hymn books will be used. The 
service will not exceed the hour in length. I do not 
want any of you to go into that service and we will 
try to keep it to fifty minutes. It will also afford the 
stranger and those who are not able to get into this 
service an opportunity of worship in this overflow, 
which service we usually have to hold at Easter and 
Christmas season. This will begin next Sunday morn¬ 
ing at eleven, and I want you to pray about it. 

The second matter is reaching this entire community, 
not in denominationalism, but for Jesus Christ, as we 
may be able. This means the spirit of co-operation 
with every other church, who names the name of Jesus 
Christ—not in attempt to criticise others. I say with¬ 
out hesitation that I am grateful to God that our 
Roman Catholic friends have put up that building near 
us. If Jesus Christ’s name be honoured, let us be glad, 
even if we differ in creed, policy and polity, and even 
if we see grave errors which annoy and seem to 
threaten. Let us freely and cordially recognise every 
work of God which stands in this community, and 
encourage rather than criticise every such work and 
enterprise. Let us then stand more clearly on the 
basis of reaching the entire community for Jesus 
Christ, and co-operate with all other churches, aiming 
to help them. 

Third: If this church continued for twenty-five 
years, at our seventy-fifth anniversary we should have 
at least an active working membership of five thousand, 
who are worshipping here regularly. No lower figure 


YESTERDAY, TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 227 

would be right, in view of the work which has been 
done and may be done. 

Fourth: This brings up the question of additional 
buildings which should be built to meet not only the 
responsibilities of housing but training such a parish. 
It will mean increased help, and this church edifice, 
great and beautiful as it is, with such a parish, should 
have at least four regular services every Sunday, fully 
attended as much as this. Why have we relegated to 
our Roman Catholic friends the use of the church 
building four or five times on Sunday, when God says 
we need this worship as much as they? I speak this as 
a matter of prophecy. 

Fifth: This leads us to another most important 
question. This church should have ultimately in her 
endowment fund not less than two million dollars. 
Our present endowment is now (by legacy and direct 
gift) about six hundred thousand dollars. We should 
have this six hundred thousand dollars raised within 
the next few years to one million dollars, with the full 
aim of at least two million dollars in mind. If the first 
million is attained there will be no trouble about the 
second million in the course of the next twenty-five 
years. It will come through legacies and by thoughtful 
gift, the precedent having been made. 

Now just one word in this connection. There are 
many people who feel that gifts should not be given to 
a religious organisation, but that their children and 
their immediate relatives should have the use of the 
whole of their money and all its benefits. I do not 
believe it. I believe the children and family should 
have their right place in the gifts which care for them, 


228 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

but I have never seen a case where money was left by a 
father or mother in large amounts to children, where 
there was not left with it Christian character to control 
it and use it aright, that did not do harm rather than 
good. I know this will trouble some people and their 
children. Nevertheless, it is true. If you leave Chris¬ 
tian character with your child; if you leave character 
which knows how to use funds, it is well and good; 
but, if you leave money without character there will 
probably be shipwreck. Most of you are where you 
are because you had to work to attain what you have 
and had to make an effort most of your life. Add 
character to it and your life has been a blessing. 

I do not say, take the funds that should be the funds 
of your children and give them to the church. Not at 
all; but, share your legacies with the church. I say to 
your sons and daughters, encourage your fathers and 
your mothers to share it with the church. Can you 
find anywhere trustees who are more carefully selected, 
more thoughtful and more conscientious? The hospi¬ 
tals, such as the Presbyterian and St. Luke’s, are re¬ 
lated to the church of Christ in their upholding and 
sustentation. All kinds of civic and philanthropic 
works, near and far, are born and mothered in the 
church. Let us sustain the founder. 

I want you to consider this, for the man or woman 
who puts it off is usually the one who dies suddenly 
without making his will, or carrying out his intention. 
Since I have been in this church many people, one after 
another, who have told me personally that they ex¬ 
pected to remember the church in their wills have not 
done so simply because it was postponed. 


YESTERDAY, TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 229 

I plead with you, men and women with means, some 
of you who are here this morning, who love the church 
—where else can you leave your money where it will 
go on more worthily forever in the great work that 
emanates from the church. I am grateful that six 
hundred thousand dollars have already been given by 
members of this church, and I believe it will be in¬ 
creased to one million within the next few years and 
ultimately to twice that amount. I will never approach 
you with any degree of insistence upon this matter. 
My mission is another, but I will pray much about it 
and talk with you as opportunity is given or as your 
wish requests. May God put it into your hearts in this 
church to meet this great need. 

Sixth: Another consideration which we must face 
within the next twenty-five years is the pew rental 
system. The pew rental system of this church and 
every church ought to be a thing of the past. You can¬ 
not have a growing, Christian, democratic spirit where 
you have a pew rental system, but you can have a 
proper system of designated pews and sittings and of 
systematic support in giving, which amounts to the 
same thing—a condition where those who give regu¬ 
larly to the church will have sittings held for them 
until eleven o’clock (not five minutes after eleven). If 
they are not there then, the pews should be given to 
others who wait. 

This will not come immediately. It never should be 
started until the one million dollars is drawing interest 
from our endowment fund. I do not think the day is 
far hence when that will be true. I ask you not to 


230 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

advocate it in any way now, but pray and work to 
hasten that day. 

Seventh: Let us consider a few actual parish needs 
which face us now. The active boards of this church 
should be enlarged. They are not large enough for the 
proper distribution of the work in reaching the needs 
of our twenty-three hundred members, and there are 
many men of splendid purpose, ability and careful 
thought, members of our church, who are ready to take 
positions on these boards. We should do more work 
among the women of our community and city, espe¬ 
cially in the homes, and.the women outside the direct 
parish. This matter is the result of years of thinking, 
watchfulness, study and prayer. As I have studied 
this parish, there is a wonderful field here. Some one 
is going to see the need and meet it by proper gift and 
appropriation. 

Spurgeon said that the homes of London needed the 
motherly relationship of women of piety, who could 
help them solve the local problems. This is especially 
true among the transient classes, so many of whom we 
have to the west of us, 

We have to-day visiting nurses and many societies 
which are working out this problem, but a great church 
like ours should not relegate to the church of other 
denominations, nor to other societies, all the responsi¬ 
bility. How few of our people ever walk down South 
Clark Street or Wells Street and West Chicago Ave¬ 
nue, or feel the great heart-throb of the tens of thou¬ 
sands of people unministered to by any Protestant 
church in this part of our city. 

We have a great responsibility. Why has God given 


YESTERDAY, TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 231 

us wealth, position and the confidence of the people? 
,We must work this problem out. There is the need of 
a building near us where at least twelve deaconesses 
can be trained by a two years’ course of study to meet 
the problems of this parish and community. It would 
not interfere with the training school. It would not 
interfere with, but use and help, any work now done 
by the Moody Bible Institute. It is greatly needed in 
this parish to meet the problems of womanhood and 
family life in our very midst. 

Our choir ought to have better accommodations. We 
have a choir leader, organist, and choir unsurpassed, 
who are doing a work for us, and as an example to the 
nation this department of work should be encouraged 
and aided. In connection with the building spoken of 
for deaconesses, this expanded need could also be met. 

There must be a greater, closer relationship to the 
churches of the entire city. The educational work of 
our city must be enhanced and strengthened as we 
relate ourselves to it. Our long and honoured relation 
to McCormick Theological Seminary is a great blessing 
and asset to us. This church must be increasingly a 
church which helps the Central West, the Far West and 
our nation. These needs may be modified within the 
years, but should be considered. 

Last of all, and inclusive of all, I plead with you to 
realise that Bible study and spiritual development leads 
in the development of all this work. It is not the num¬ 
ber who attend the church that counts. It is the influ¬ 
ence and power of those who are in the church, and who 
are able to build themselves up in the faith. Then your 
sons and daughters, when the seventy-fifth anniversary 


232 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

comes, will name your names as those who trained 
them in the knowledge of God’s word and in spiritual 
truth. 

Oh, my dear people I would to God that we could 
work on with such aims that our church may become 
the centre where our sons and daughters may learn the 
most holy faith of our fathers; where little children 
may learn that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of men and 
the friend of children. Oh, my dear people, hear these 
words: 

“Move to the fore, 

Say not another is fitter than thou. 

Shame to thy shrinking, up, face thy task now. 

Own thyself equal to all a soul may. 

Cease thy evading, God needs thee to-day. 

Move to the fore. 

God Himself waits and must wait till thou come; 

Men are God’s prophets tho’ ages lie dumb; 

Halts the Christ kingdom with conquest so near, 

Thou art the cause then, thou soul in the rear, 

Move to the fore.” 

Then the words of our texts shall be true: “The 
latter glory of this house shall be greater than the 
former, saith Jehovah of hosts; and in this place will 
I give peace,” and we will follow the counsel of our 
God in our other text: “Only be strong and very 
courageous, to observe, to do according to all the law, 
which Moses, thy servant, commanded thee; turn not 
from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou 
mayest have good success whithersoever thou goest.” 


XXI 


CHRISTIAN ESTABLISHMENT 

“When thou art converted, strengthen thy breth¬ 
ren.”— Luke 22132. 

It is very interesting to note that this remarkable 
sentence of Christ’s followed the assertion that Satan 
would seek to have one who stood among the strongest 
of Christ’s followers. It is very clearly related to the 
denial of that same man, recognising the human weak¬ 
ness of life. 

We had in our Scripture lesson the thought that God 
puts humanity in earthen vessels that man may not 
depend upon himself too much. 

Then comes another truth: The establishment of 
righteousness in the earth is not related simply to 
Omnipotence, but is established in human weakness, 
and so Christ said to the Church: “When thou are 
converted, strengthen thy brethren.” He spoke to this 
man and to all who follow Him. 

This gives to us first of all the thought of the rela¬ 
tivity of the Christian life. An unrelated Christian 
life is not a Christian life at all. 

When there came to John of the Golden Mouth 
(Chrysostom) the consciousness that the heart-beat of 
the city of Antioch needed the handclasp of Christian 
leadership, he no longer went to his rough cloister or 
cave in the outskirts of that city. He was starving 
233 


234 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

himself and living a life of seclusion and secrecy in 
prayer and devotion in the thought that worship meant 
separation from humanity. He discovered it meant 
not only separation from sin, but it means contact 
with humanity, and Chrysostom learned this. In one 
sense he was a pioneer of social service. But, social 
service, for its own sake amounts to nothing. Social 
service for Christ’s and humanity’s sake amounts to a 
great deal. It must never be a substitute for, but a 
supplement of faith and worship. And so this man of 
God said: “Although I love to worship in the wilder¬ 
ness, and love the cave where I have eaten my bread 
and water and starved myself into a self-victory in 
keeping my body under, I realise that the great throb¬ 
bing city of Antioch, with all its suffering, criticism, 
bitterness, murder and immorality needs a faith that I 
can give. So that Sunday morning when he preached 
in the old church, and it was known that this young 
priest had come out from the wilderness, they not only 
stood but filled all available space, listening to his 
message which has run round the world in its after¬ 
effect. As this man became an emphasiser of related 
Christianity, he became his brother’s keeper. The 
suffering of his neighbour touched his heart, and he 
even felt the pain which the other suffered. That was 
a new interpretation of the Gospel which he emphasised 
and preached. 

These words of Christ are the true definition of a 
Christian’s faith. “Show me your faith without your 
works,” said the old practical theologian of Holy Writ, 
“and I will show you my faith by my works.” 

In that recent book of Clara E. Laughlin’s— 


CHRISTIAN ESTABLISHMENT 


235 


“Jeanne-Marie’s Triumph”-—she has clarified much 
confusion of thought as to a fixed and vital principle 
in national service. She puts into the lips of the 
heroine in that dramatic scene of popular uprising in 
Paris these words: 

“We say the diplomats have messed things up. 
They can’t make peace! We must make it! Every 
one of us must make his share—do his utmost, as 
they did who bled and died ‘out there.’ And we 
must make it in the same spirit in which they 
fought for it—sacrifice and service. Not ‘every 
man for himself,’ but ‘every man for others.’ Not, 
‘what can I get out of this?’ but ‘what can I do or 
give, that will make the world safer and better to 
live in?’ ” 

This is the thought of our theme and text to-day— 
not self, but others. This very principle brought Jesus 
Christ into the world and led Him to give His life for 
us. It is the related power of Christianity—“If you 
are converted, strengthen thy brethren.” 

The influence of one devoted life to another is seen 
in the inspiration Wordsworth received from his sister, 
Dorothy. Of her he said: 

“She gave me eyes, she gave me ears, 

And humble cares, and delicate fears, 

A heart, the fountain of sweet tears, 

And Love and Thought and Joy,” 

and the man of those great human poems (perhaps 
even more than Tennyson) gripped the heart of those 
who read them, whether he talked about a sheep-fold 


236 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

on the hills of North Scotland, or touched the beauty 
of a love scene on an English lake. This man said 
that this life-giving self in his youth and on through 
his maturing years taught him “love and thought and 
joy.” What a testimony of a sister’s devotion and 
love! It is the related power of Christianity and the 
influence we must have upon others. 

No nation which does not bear the primary respon¬ 
sibilities of its individual citizenship and is not loyal 
to individual standards of right living will ever be in a 
position to help others. Conversion leads to brother¬ 
hood. “When thou art converted, strengthen thy 
brethren.” 

Now secondly: A helpful relationship to others 
appreciates the weakness in human nature as well as 
the strength and seeks to give itself to assist and help 
in the place of weakness. It is constructive. “When 
thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” The 
Church in her establishment is not a matter of form, 
of ceremony, or of geography! It is a matter of the 
relationship of human hearts to other hearts. It aims 
to make your child stronger than you are; to make his 
child stronger than your child’s child, and the growth 
and development of spiritual matters is established in 
the earth, not simply by a theory but by reproducing 
lives. 

The greatest criticism as to some so-called religions 
is that they are self-centred. When you tell me that a 
religion is not reaching out to save those in distress, 
there is no need of defending it, because any thoughtful 
man or woman sees its fallacy. The test is in the 
attack; in meeting the need. 


CHRISTIAN ESTABLISHMENT 237 

Many years ago some coach on a foot-ball team 
devised the fact that in the attack the signal could be 
so given that the men in the line could be adjusted 
quickly, so that the strongest man would oppose the 
strongest man in the line. When those men quickly 
changed their positions, they thought it was simply with 
the purpose of advancing the ball. Not at all! The 
formation was such that the attack was made with 
every weak spot in their line recognised and a substi¬ 
tute for it in the strength of the strongest. It was not 
yielding their point of weakness to the other team, but 
taking the point of strength. It strengthened the ad¬ 
vancing team by making the team strong just where it 
needed relative strength to the opposing enemy. 

Now such is Christianity. This world must be 
strengthened; the Church of Christ must be strength¬ 
ened in her weak places, and she has many because she 
is human. It is the earthen vessel of it—the Peter that 
denied Christ. We must not lose because of the weak 
people in the Church, but place in positions of strength 
those who are strong. 

Usually the critic of the Church is a sinner himself, 
whether his sin is known or not. He may have covered 
it up. It may be a sin of some selfishness, of egotism, 
or pride, but it is just as much a sin in the sight of God. 
If he is a true critic of the Church of Christ, he will be 
a constructor. True criticism has construction in it, 
not destruction. It is invariably true that the critic who 
is destructive is one who has something in his life he 
wants to cover up. He is not a scholar, for scholarship 
is constructive; he is not a student, for he does not go 
far enough and study remedy. 


238 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

Take a little hunch-back child who is trying to walk 
straight. Your heart goes out to him, but some foolish 
and unworthy teacher comes along and says: “Stand 
up straight—don’t you know you are hunch-backed!” 
You see tears on the cheek of the little boy. Does he 
not know he was hunchbacked ? Does he not cry him¬ 
self to sleep at night until his little back aches? 
Another noble soul says: “My boy, that’s right, try 
to stand straight. You’re looking better.” The 
little fellow forgets all about his back and a happy 
smile comes over his face and he tries to straighten up, 
and goes to the surgeon or hospital with hope and 
courage. The first is destructive criticism. There is no 
Christianity in it. The second is constructive. That is 
what Christ meant—“If ye be converted, strengthen 
thy brethren.” 

Again Christ’s thought teaches us to overlook the 
smallness of life. It may be that some people have 
gotten into trouble with minor points. Perhaps an 
oversight about pews—something happened, and the 
little man says: “I’ll never go in that church again,” 
and from that time he becomes a man who says, “You 
know the church is not doing very much.” There is 
self-evidence. Such things happen. 

Such lives usually could not stand a search-light 
within. They become super-sensitive. The bank ex¬ 
aminers tell us they discover a good many crooked 
dealings from men who tell them about other bankers 
that are crooked, and they immediately begin to wonder 
what may be the matter with these men. The man who 
is honest appreciates honesty, and looks for faithful¬ 
ness and loyalty in the men in his line of work. The 


CHRISTIAN ESTABLISHMENT 239 

best way to show your own weakness is to begin to 
complain about somebody else. There is something 
wrong in universal criticism. It means there is some¬ 
thing there unrelated to the great constructive work of 
Jesus Christ, “If ye be converted, strengthen your 
brethren.” 

Note this additional fact: We can never have a 
permanent influence in this world unless our self- 
denying effort begins in the little things where we live. 
Everybody’s problem is a little more difficult than 
anybody’s else. Of course, Bobby Burns could tell it to 
us better than some others. No, we do not see our¬ 
selves as others see U 9 . 

Walter Scott said: “Teach self-denial and make its 
practice pleasurable, and you create for the world a 
destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain 
of the wildest dreamer,” but that self-denial must be in 
our own personal problems, no matter how small. 

Emerson said: “Would we codify the laws that 
should reign in households, and whose daily trans¬ 
gression annoys and mortifies us, and degrades our 
household life, we must adorn every day with sacri¬ 
fices. Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.” 
Not the great things, but the little things, the trying, 
constant, irritating things are the expressions of the 
related Christianity which will make this world see and 
know the Christ, and realise His power. 

Our theme this morning is “Christian Establish¬ 
ment,” and you ask—“Why this subject on the morn¬ 
ing of the Communion?” At the Lord’s table we meet 
in commemoration of His sacrifice and love. We are 
converted people, JYe have turned to Christ. Are we 


240 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

here to learn to strengthen the brethren; to make other 
people better? What is the best way of doing it? 
Teaching them? Preaching to them? Admonishing 
them? Correcting them? Not at all. Live the life. 
““What you are talks so loud I cannot hear what you 
say.” The babel of voices is the confused multitudes 
preaching to other people and defining instead of living 
righteousness. 

Carnegie Simpson closes his excellent life of Princi¬ 
pal Rainy with these remarkable words which well may 
be a testimony paid to the world’s greatest men: 

“The great service he did the Church in his day 
was by setting the example, and leading the 
Church to do the same, of a thoroughly high¬ 
hearted and grand style of dealing with duties, 
with events, with assailants. Clear as to his prin¬ 
ciples, in full possession of the practical forces by 
which the Church must be moved and guided, he 
brought to every occurrence, above all these, a 
grand resoluteness, fidelity and unselfishness, that 
lifted his cause and all who shared it to a higher 
platform. In all he did he was a magnanimous 
Christian; and by the grandeur of his impulses 
and the nobility of his attitude, he raised the 
Church’s own conception of her cause and of her 
work. The great Christian ideas which inspired 
his action were seen in him undegraded by asso¬ 
ciation with personal littleness, with paltry feel¬ 
ings and paltry ends.” 

Is not this what we need through all the Churches,— 
a high-hearted Christianity; conscious of the greatness 


CHRISTIAN ESTABLISHMENT 241 

of the Christian truths and the Christian calling; reso¬ 
lute in the assertion of them? 

Now do you know there is a wonderful truth in this. 
The more your life is filled with greatness of soul, 
the more you will deny yourself. The trouble with 
two obstinate people is that the one thinks the other is 
more obstinate than himself. Carnegie Simpson con¬ 
tinues : 


“Not with the bitter and narrow obstinacy of 
small men, but with the strength of great princi¬ 
ples, of a temper too assured to be passionate or 
faltering or perplexed! One should pray for great 
men—Christian men of great moral and mental 
stature. It is the privilege of such men to strike 
key-notes, to step out and take positions which de¬ 
cide instantly how things shall go; then, the chorus 
of the rejoicing Church rises in harmony with 
their utterance, the strength of the Church moves 
and ranks itself behind them, and each man is 
potentiated into twice his own power by the im¬ 
pulse which he receives and the consciousness in 
which he shares. Such service he did for the 
Church of his day.” 

It is the same service that the Lord Jesus Christ 
requires of us. By giving our lives to others and 
seeing that we are our brother’s keeper, we fulfil the 
law of Christ, and sometime we may hear Him say: 
“Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, 
ye have done it unto me.” Thus will Christianity be 
established and as converted men we will “strengthen 
the brethren.” 


XXII 


THE SOUL’S VISION 

“And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man 
and he saw.”—II Kings 6:17. 

Dothan was a hill town set out from the sur¬ 
rounding country among the Judaean mountains—a 
point on the great caravan highway. It was known 
somewhat previously in history. God had spoken 
to others there and God had given His vision to others, 
but it was also where the prophet of God, Elisha, was 
resting. 

Word about Elisha came to the Syrian King who 
could not understand why his every manoeuvre and 
movement were known to the foe, and thinking, 
naturally, that some one in his camp was a traitor, it 
provoked the question whereupon the answer came— 
“There is no traitor, but that man of God, Elisha, 
knows what you are thinking and saying in your bed¬ 
chamber. He is a man of God.” So the King said: 
“Then, this is the man we must capture,” and he sent 
chariots and horses and a great host who surrounded 
this little town by night. 

In the early morning the servant of Elisha went out 
and behold! they were surrounded with Syrians. In 
his fear he went to his master, Elisha, and said: 
“Master, what can we do—we are surrounded on every 
242 


243 


THE SOUL’S VISION 

side. There is no escape!” But, calm and strong, this 
man with a vision replied: “They that are with us are 
more than they are with them.” Then he prayed, “O, 
Jehovah, open the eyes of the young man that he 
may see.” 

Physical blindness is never so hard and dire in its 
results as spiritual blindness. The souls of men are 
greater than their bodies. Men have overcome physical 
blindness. Why, if it had not been for a printer, 
stricken in his earlier life with blindness, the blind 
could not read to-day, but that genius, Moon, was able 
to invent a system whereby tens of thousands have read 
the Gospel Story, and know the saving power of Jesus 
Christ. They have read it with their sensitive finger¬ 
tips, because that man who was blind used his limitation 
to the glory of God. Whether it be a Helen Keller, or 
a great musician sitting at the organ sending forth 
harmony and meanings that the world had not known 
before, there is something far beyond the physical 
limitation, for men have attained marvellously. But, 
spiritual blindness has no remedy. 

The lessons before us this morning are so many, we 
must limit them. 

First: We must remember that if we have this 
spiritual vision we may be enabled to see the unseen, 
and know the unknowable, and use the impossible to 
attain the impossible for God. 

This spiritual vision gives us the far view of oppor¬ 
tunity . There is to-day much to discourage, and the 
man whose heart is not inspired by divine things sinks 
gradually into a lethargy of soul and cares not, and 
opportunity loses her sovereign sway. He loses re- 


244 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

sponsibility. He loses a sense of the chance which life 
may give. He becomes dull in his intellect, careless in 
his habit and manner, and loses the will-power to act. 
But the soul that sees attempts the impossible for God 
and has the far view. He is not living simply for a 
day, but is living for a future. 

Many of the problems of the present day will never 
be solved by those of us who are living now, but by our 
children. The great questions of Europe can never be 
solved by a mere system, but we must work toward an 
end. With patience we must deliberate, and with pa¬ 
tience we must fulfil, and our children will be the men 
and women who ultimately will solve many of the 
great problems. The great Cathedrals were built by 
many generations. 

What educational system is worth the paper on which 
it is written without the far view of attainment? Why 
are we so anxious about the child who is in the first 
grades, and so careful as to the instruction which that 
child receives? And why do we watch that school in its 
development from grade to grade ? Because the grow¬ 
ing child solves the problem of the later student. It is 
the far view. It has always been so in government. 
We have just begun to realise that some of the state¬ 
ments of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, 
Benjamin Franklin, John Marshall and Patrick Henry 
have been the words that are finding their real place 
in the moments in which we live. The wisdom of 
Daniel Webster is a wisdom which we recognise now 
far more than in the eloquent tongue which gave the 
world its thrill with his personal presence. 

Perhaps, we should not judge the men of our own 


THE SOUL’S VISION 


245 


day too severely. We must stand away from the high 
building to get the right perspective. Too many men 
and women are judging the experiences and the men 
of the hour without the true perspective which history 
must give, just as Wordsworth said so beautifully that 
time alone can assuage the sorrow of life and give to 
us the real purpose in God’s great plan. So it is that 
you and I must see with the vision of the soul and 
with time-revealing faith. This vision is given to those 
who are keen in their spiritual sight. 

Secondly: Notice the vision of the soul faces the 
immediate condition and present light of God. 

Elisha was a man of God who saw victory where 
others saw nothing but defeat. With his calm and 
deliberate judgment he saw God. 

"Careless seems the great avenger; 

History’s pages but record 
One death-grapple in the darkness 
Twixt old systems and the Word; 

Truth forever on the scaffold. 

Wrong forever on the throne,— 

Yet that scaffold sways the future, 

And behind the dim unknown, 

Standeth God within the shadow, 

Keeping watch above His own.” 

The soul’s vision takes God into account and sees the 
divine. 

Third: Notice as well, if you will, that spiritual 
-vision means material leadership. This great host was 
encamped against the man of God. What chance had 
he ? But the material was overcome. Why ? Because 
this man was greater than the opposing foe, and was 
above fear of the human soul. Faith conquers fear. 


246 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

Faith sees God and recognises invisible leadership. 
Men of vision and faith have always been leaders. 

Amid the turmoil, and perhaps the chaos, of careless 
and selfish lives, there is a great deal of confusion, 
wrong and crime in our city, and in our homes, but 
when men of faith face the real issue, there is no per¬ 
manent danger, for with faith and vision they become 
the leaders of their day. 

Go back through history and we find that spiritual 
leadership has met the crisis. This is more especially 
true in recent centuries where definitions of God’s love 
have been more evident and eminent. God’s leaders 
have led the world in times of crises. 

The Revolutionary period discovered men of vision 
and created souls who always saw God. Later the 
lonely Lincoln was on his knees alone when members of 
his cabinet had left him in discouragement. And, 
when the nation hung in the balance and a great princi¬ 
ple seemed to be lost, we see this noble soul, as he kneels 
alone in his room. But God was there, and a spiritual 
leadership which drew the tear to the physical eye, put 
the keen edge to an intellect and warmed the fires of 
a great heart, and led a nation, and all was well. 

Fourth: Notice, that spiritual vision has initiative 
in it, and this initiative is that which suggests remedy. 

Whoever dreamed that Elisha could escape? The 
lad was right when he said: “We are surrounded— 
there is no chance.” Whoever heard of there being a 
chance when a great general had sent his choicest 
chariots and horses and army against them? What 
chance was there ? 

But the spiritual leadership of this great soul had 


THE SOUL’S VISION 247 

initiative in it, and in initiative there was faith and 
remedy. 

The darkest days face many of the nations. What 
will save them? Will organisation? Never. Too 
many of them are so counter-organised at the present 
time that it has become a tangled spider web without 
an individual mind weaving the web. All kinds of 
intricacies, and multiplicity of organisations will not 
save them. An ideal will not save them, no matter 
how it may be humanized. What will save them? 
Nothing, but the spirit of brotherhood and Christian 
leadership, and out of that chaos and blackness of the 
night a vision must be seen. What will save them? 
Why the vision that has initiative in it and in that 
initiative faith will find the remedy. “I can do all 
things through Christ who strengtheneth me.” 

Christianity cannot save them, but Christ can. Re¬ 
ligion cannot save them, but the Man of Nazareth can, 
and His principles of brotherhood, touching nation as 
well as individual man will give vision and will reply in 
the powerful cry of prayer: “O God, open his eyes 
that he may see.” This thought leads to our next 
consideration: 

Fifth: This vision of the soul gives to men Power 
in Prayer . This initiative is accomplished through the 
Power of Prayer. 

Praying men believe in prayer. Men who do not 
pray, ridicule prayer. Men who have no use for the 
law, ignore and criticise the law; men who study and 
practise law, believe in law. Men who will not use any 
form of medicine or surgery, ignore it and criticise it. 
Men who save life by medicine and surgery, believe 


248 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

in it. Praying men believe in prayer. Men who 
never pray do not believe in prayer. Why should they ? 

But the power of prayer grows out of the spiritual 
insight and vision of the soul. 

Are we becoming careless somewhat in our prayer? 
Is it a mere matter of form, or a matter of generalised 
strength? Do we pray because we need? We always 
pray in need. Let a great blow come to our lives and 
we want a praying man or a praying woman by our 
side. Let that littte child, who is more to you than all 
else, lie with a fever of one hundred and four or one 
hundred and five and doctors knit their brows and you 
say—“Won’t you pray for us?” No one is cruel 
enough to say: “Have you been praying through the 
years?” Why no, you have forgotten all about it. 
Prayer did not mean much to you. A minister hap¬ 
pened to be in your home when a blessing was asked, 
and your boy at once said: “What’s that?” You 
have forgotten all about the place that prayer has at 
the Family Altar, but this little child is nigh unto 
death, and some one must pray, and why should you 
not want some one to pray? 

Have we forgotten the power of prayer? The great 
volume of prayer that came from hundreds of thou¬ 
sands of earnest lives five or six years ago meant much 
to this nation and to our boys in France. 

In preparing this sermon, I looked over some letters 
received from the front from the boys of this church, 
boys of different types and kinds! Many had the 
request: “Pray for us.” Or, “We are glad the 
churches are remembering us in prayer.” Some of 
them had never spoken of prayer before. Alongside 


THE SOTjL’S VISION 249 

of those letters I read a few from mothers, in which 
they said: “We are praying with you.” 

Thank God for a praying people. We cannot forget 
the power of prayer, but it is so much harder to pray 
when we are successful than when we are unsuccessful. 
It is so much easier for a drunken man to be penitent 
than a sober man; for a man in affliction to realise the 
need of God than when everything is going well. It is 
easier to pray for help when your bank account is low 
than when you have an account with four or five figures 
from which to draw. 

Lastly: The Soul’s vision gives us relief and vic¬ 
tory. We know not how it comes. Who among that 
Syrian host ever dreamed they would be led by the sur¬ 
rounded prophet into the land of Samaria, but the 
power of answered prayer led that great host, blinded 
themselves, when they thought they could see, because 
the man of prayer was the man of initiative, the man 
of emergency, the man of power, and the man of vic¬ 
tory, and victory was the victory of the soul. Later 
the lad looked out on that force of conquered Syrians 
and sounded the bugle call, saying: “Father, Father, 
shall we slay them?” The prophet replied: “Slay them 
not. Give them food and drink;” and the lasting vic¬ 
tories of this old world are going to be accomplished by 
giving the nations food and drink instead of continuing 
to slay them with the sword. 

Those of you who heard that marvellous address on 
Thursday night by Mr. Colten as to the conditions of 
Russia will remember he said that the best families in 
Russia, the most intelligent and well-to-do families, are 
not fed to-day as well as our organised charities in 


250 PLACES OF QUIET STRENGTH 

Chicago are feeding our poor; to say nothing of the 
masses who are suffering hunger and distress. 

Those nations will never be saved by continued 
blood-shed. Poor, sin-reaping, cruel Turkey will never 
be led away from their stream of blood by the sword, 
even, if we must, in my judgment, definitely and 
clearly stand with other nations in saying that they 
shall not slay the innocent! They will never be led to a 
standard of righteous living and peace-loving by the 
sword. We must feed them and give them drink and 
save their boys, and help them work out their own 
salvation. 

Yes, the vision of the soul is the vision of relief and 
victory. Thus the Saviour of Men died on a cross 
that the world might know the meaning of Brotherhood 
and that men might love one another. Oh, Lord, 
“Open our eyes that we may see.” 


THE END. 


















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